A Torch, Carried
by HardlyFatal
Summary: Show-only canon, NOT book. Arya struggles to reconcile her old life with her new one as she enters upon a dangerous mission, and Jon has to go to extremes to convince Dany to help him fight the White Walkers. This is conjecture as to how things go from S07E03. Major pairings: Arya/Gendry, Dany/Jon. Minor pairing: Sansa/Sandor. Hints of Brienne/Jaime.
1. Chapter 1

Arya went steadfastly further north until, at last, she found herself only a few days' travel away from Winterfell. It hardly seemed possible, after all that time— so many deaths, some of them at her own hands— that she should be returning.

She kept to the woods, off the road, to ensure she didn't have to deal with anyone. Odds were equally good of her meeting brigands, enemy forces, or Stark allies who'd waste too much of her time joyfully reminiscing about the good old days. As far as Arya was concerned, the recollecting the old days only made the shite of the present day all the worse.

She began noticing the tracks of a group of horsemen the closer she traveled to Winterfell, until she caught up to them a mere day from her home. They set an unusually sluggish pace for a small group such as they were; she doubted there were more than a dozen of them. Providing they were all hale, and only one man to a horse, they should have remained apace from her the entire trip rather than being so slow she could match them.

"Ho! Let's stop here for a rest," called the one in the lead, and the company slowed to a halt, everyone dismounting and stretching tired thighs and necks. From so far away, even Arya's keep sight could not focus on any one face, although one of them, far taller and more brawny than the rest, moved in a way that was… familiar.

Unpleasantly familiar, if the recognition teasing at the edges of her mind was accurate.

She circled around them at a fair distance before dismounting. She tied her dappled gray to a tree a quarter-mile from where they had started a small fire from scavenged branches and stood, warming their hands before it.

She would not be able to get close. They'd chosen their spot well; the clearing was plenty big enough to hold them, their horses, and leave plenty of empty space to ensure they'd see any attackers well before they were reached. Arya crept closer, using the shadows cast by the close-set trees to assist in her concealment, and strained to overhear the men's discussion. Needing to stay hidden, she could only advance as far as the nearest tree, but it was close enough that she could hear them clearly, now, and with a sinking feeling in her belly, she saw that she had been correct.

The large fellow… was the Hound. Her hideous old nemesis, crude bastard that he was, and thorn in her side for far too long before she'd been able to rid herself of him. Often she'd wondered if he'd lived or died, and long ago had decided that he had to have died. His injuries had been terrible, and it would have been a true miracle for anyone to have found him, and even more of a miracle for that person to help him, ugly and smelly and bloody as he'd been.

It looked as if a miracle had indeed occurred, twice over, for there was no mistaking that scarred visage, the long dark hair blowing all over, that massive body. He was wearing clothes, instead of armor, and she didn't recognize the sword-hilt jutting from his scabbard.

The balding one with the weird knot of hair at his crown, Thoros she thought she remembered his name might be, held his hands out toward the fire they'd just lit.

"This is a welcome bit of warmth," he said as he sat on one of the fallen tree trunks some of the other men had dragged to a perimeter around the fire. "Eh, Clegane?"

The Hound- and wasn't she still amazed to see him, not only there, but in that particular company- slanted him a narrow look and busied himself with unstrapping his sword belt, offering no reply.

The third man, Beric, took a swig from a wineskin and offered it around. Thoros drank but the Hound did not, and Arya was amazed again: since when did the Hound refuse wine?

"It's a waste of time, stopping to rest now," the Hound growled, peering up at the cloudless sky. Arya knew he was assessing the position of the sun in the sky, and that he could tell it was mid-afternoon. "when we'll just have to stop again at sundown."

"The horses are tired," Beric said mildly. "Taking an hour to rest them won't delay us too badly."

The Hound just tossed him an unfriendly glance and rested his elbows on his knees, dropping his gaze to the fire, pointedly ignoring the both of them.

But then the tension in his huge shoulders relaxed and his gaze unfocused. The other men immediately sat up a bit straighter, peering closely at him.

"What do you see, Clegane?" Thoros asked softly.

"She's surrounded, all of them circling her. Like wolves, but-" here, he gave a contemptuous laugh, "-nothing like as fierce. I know _real_ wolves.

"She's all alone, except for that big bitch. That one can fight, but not so many at once. They're back-to-back, watchful…"

The Hound reared back, lips curling back in a snarl.

"Now _he_ _'_ _s_ approaching, all smiles and coaxing and smooth, empty words. Vicious cunt, he is. _Littlefinger,_ _"_ he hissed _._ "She doesn't realize, doesn't know what he's done… she doesn't trust him much, but it's just enough for him to get close."

His voice had lowered to a subterranean rumble. His scars, lit by the fire, were more gruesome than Arya had ever seen them.

"He slides a knife into the big bitch and then puts his arm around her-"

"Which her?"

"The only _her_ that matters," the Hound sneered.

Beric and Thoros exchanged a knowing glance.

"Ah, that would be the lady Sansa, then," murmured Thoros.

Arya jerked in surprise, almost losing her balance, crouched as she was on the balls of her feet. _What?_

"He puts his arm around her, and leads her away… toward a cliff. The cliff the big bitch tossed me off. He's smiling, pouring his weasel words into her ears. Smiling, smiling, he's got shark teeth, and he guides her right off the cliff, and she falls, and her- her wings, the little bird's wings are gone, he clipped them long ago, and she can't fly anymore."

His big hands, dangling between his knees, were shaking.

"She falls. She lands, just where I landed, when I fell. She's broken. He looks over the edge of the cliff, smiling… _smiling_..."

He clenched his eyes shut. Those big hands tightened into fists that could hit like an anvil, as Arya could attest. Abruptly, he stood.

"We don't have time for this. We have to get to Winterfell as soon as we can."

He made for his horse, starting to put back on all the tack that had just been removed from the poor beast.

"We'll get there tomorrow, Clegane," Beric began. "A day's difference won't-"

"A day's difference could mean her death," the Hound hissed. Saddle and reins back in place, he stalked back to the fire and retrieved his swordbelt, buckling it back on with practiced moves borne of long experience. "If you won't come with me, you lazy cunts, I'll go myself."

Beric opened his mouth to reply, but Thoros forestalled him with a raised hand. "We'll catch up," was all he said, a keen look on his face as he stared at the Hound.

With one last contemptuous glance, the Hound hoisted himself astride and wheeled his poor beast into a trot, headed west.

Arya crept back to her own horse and mounted, spurring the gray in the same direction at a gallop until she caught sight of him ahead on the hard-packed snow that counted as a road. She veered off into the trees and followed, close enough to keep him in view but far enough that he couldn't hear the crunch of her mount's hooves in the snow and dead leaves.

The Hound rode for another few hours, until night had fallen completely. The night was almost moonless and if not for the paleness of the snow, he'd have been riding blind. But he kept going until a crofter's hut appeared at the end of a narrow path jutting off the road, and turned his tired horse toward it. Arya waited until she heard the thud of a door shutting, and then followed.

She tied the gray to a tree and tiptoed closer, employing the stealth taught to her by the Faceless Men to pass lightly over the crisp-shelled snow. The hut was windowless, but as she watched, a plume of smoke curled weakly from the lopsided old chimney.

From long experience, Arya knew the Hound would take about an hour to fall asleep, waiting until he was satisfied there was no danger to being unconscious, so she returned to her horse and removed his tack, giving him a brisk rub-down and feed from her dwindling supply, then covering him with his warm blanket.

"I'm sorry I've no snug stable to offer you," she whispered, petting his velvet nose. She hadn't seen the Hound's horse outside, so he must have brought the beast into the hut with him. It was smart thinking; their shared body heat would keep them both alive that frigid night.

Arya waited patiently, judging how much time has passed by the position of the moon and swinging her arms to keep her blood moving. When she judged it to have been two hours, and that the Hound would be deeply asleep, she picked her way forward and around the hut.

There was a second entrance in back, the door's boards crudely fitted and permitting a gap big enough for her to peer through. She couldn't see much over the bulk of his horse's rump as it lay rather like a dog, with its head on its forelegs. In the dying flames of the little fire the Hound had started, she could see him curled up by the hearth, close enough to feel its heat but far enough away that any thrown sparks wouldn't set him alight. She marveled, for a moment, at how relaxed he seemed- for him- to deal with fire, a distinct change from when she'd traveled with him.

Her only real risk was opening one of the doors, since she knew well how to silence her footfalls and calm animals so they did not betray her with their alarm. Scrutiny of each entrance showed her that the back door was near to rusted shut from disuse, and assuredly would screech when opened, so her only option was the front. She still wasn't too worried; the Hound was a light sleeper, but he'd still be muzzy from a sudden awakening, she was fully alert and far faster now than she'd been when he'd known her before.

And so it went. The door squeaked when she pressed it open, but she combined speed with stealth and had Needle's point under his chin before he'd fully sat up, his hand still hovering over his nearby scabbard.

They stared at each other for long moments, in silence. Then he barked a short laugh and lay his big ugly head back down on the leather pack serving as his pillow. He even went so far as to nestle deeper into his ragged bedroll, eyes falling closed.

"You didn't bother to kill me, last time," he muttered. "Come to finish the job?"

Arya did not reply. She had wanted to question him— to learn what he was doing, going to Winterfell in such a hurry, why Sansa's safety mattered to him at all, why he could see things in _fire_ , by all the gods-

"Go on, then." His tone was grating, insolent. Challenging.

"I _could_ kill you, you know. This time." Her hand was perfectly steady as it held Needle to his throat. "I was weaker before. I'm not, anymore."

He smirked, eyes still shut. "Saw you kill, before. You were plenty strong, then."

"I didn't mean physically."

The Hound's eyes opened and he stared at her.

"Yes," he agreed after a moment. "I see what you mean."

Arya wondered what he intended by that, but decided to press on to the matter at hand, and poked him in the side with Needle, none too gently. He grimaced and squirmed away from its point.

"What do you want, then, wolf-bitch?" he grumbled. "I'm too tired for a heart-to-heart, so ask your questions and fuck off, if it please you."

"It doesn't."

He rolled his eyes at her and she was suddenly hard-pressed to stifle a giggle, so comical an expression was it. She had before her incontrovertible proof that, against all odds, the Hound had… changed. Softened, somehow. Had acquired mannerisms that didn't have to do with violence or rage. It was bizarre beyond belief.

Suddenly, she felt as weary as he had professed himself.

"Fine," she said. "We'll talk in the morning. I'll bring my horse in, too."

"Oh, good," he said, not sounding pleased at all, and rolled away from her to face the fire. Before she even left the hut, he was snoring again.

Once her gray was settled comfortably by the Hound's roan, she wrapped her own blanket around herself and settled into the corner opposite her new, and old, companion, studying his face, noting how he looked a bit older, a bit more careworn. Her last thought, before falling asleep, was that he still seemed like the same old arsehole she'd known and hated.


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning Arya was woken in an unpleasantly familiar way: with an ungentle toe to the ribs and a barked, "Off your ass, wolf-bitch, we've places to be."

Outside's cold took her breath away at first. The sky overhead was a clear, hard blue that hurt her eyes. She felt bad removing the warm blanket from her horse but knew the exercise of bearing a rider would soon warm the poor beast.

Once they were a-saddle and on their way to Winterfell once more, Arya began her inquisition.

"How were you scrying in the flames?"

He shot her a glance as he bit into some dried beef and chewed slowly, chasing it with a gulp from his water skin.

 _Water,_ she marveled. _The Hound is drinking water. Voluntarily._

"Been spying on me since then? Hn."

He took another bite, making her wait until he'd finished the strip of beef and started in on a hunk of cheese.

"Don't know," he said at last. "Thoros and Beric think I've been chosen by their buggering god as some sort of… oracle. I call it a bloody damned mind fuck."

"What did you see in the flames?"

"Just what you heard me tell them. No more and no less."

"That Sansa is in danger."

He grunted in confirmation.

"That she's surrounded by those who would harm her, with only that lady knight to protect her."

Grunt.

"And that Littlefinger will try to trick and fool her… to her doom."

Grunt.

"And that you can save her, if you get there in time."

Pause.

Grunt.

"Why is that something you'd waste your time on?"

Pause.

"Might be I don't consider it a waste, wolf-bitch." Snarled.

Arya blinked; it appeared she'd prodded a sore spot. And, like a sore spot, she couldn't leave it alone.

"Why not?"

He ignored her.

"Why isn't it a waste?"

More silence.

" _Why_ , Hound?" she pressed.

He heaved a sigh.

"That's not my name anymore. The Hound died where you left him."

She could scarcely believe her ears. The Hound she'd known had been proud of his fierce moniker, had delighted in seeing the fear on the faces of those who recognized him, having heard of his bloody reputation.

"What has happened to you?" she asked in horrified tones. "Who did this to you?"

"What, softened me up? Don't make the mistake of thinking I can't kill just as easily as before, wolf-bitch, because I can, and you'd best not test me on that." He eyed her over a bite of cheese. "I'm still the same hell-spawned bastard you knew. I'm still a killer."

He looked away, over the snowy expanse that stretched before them.

"I just kill for different reasons, now."

"What reasons?" Arya demanded. "Because of the fire god? Because of your new _friends_?"

He barked a laugh. "Friends, yes, but not those fire-fuckers." When she lapsed into a shocked silence, stunned at the notion of the Hound having actual friends, he laughed again. "You think you're the only one who can change?"

"In my experience, change only happens in those who _want_ to change," she said coldly. "And few do."

"Ah, yes, your _vast_ pool of experience," he mocked. "Such an aged crone, you are. Guess you can't imagine that _I_ might want to change."

Arya was shocked silent once more. Then, "Did you? Do you?"

"I had already changed between when we traveled with your father down to King's Landing and when I found you with the Brotherhood, later on. Then even more, after you left me for dead. Now I'm changing again, because of this fire-scrying shit. Might be I'll never stop. Who knows what I'll be in a year from now."

He did not sound excited, but resigned, about this unknown prospect.

She thought about what he said for a long time, quiet, eating her own meager meal while ruminating. Fine, so, the Brotherhood and their fire god were having an influence over him. He'd not yet said what had happened to him after she'd deserted him on that rocky hillside. But after King's Landing and before he'd taken her hostage, there had been…

"Sansa," Arya breathed. "The thing that changed you between our journey south and your snatching me… you were with Sansa in King's Landing. She's what changed you."

He shot her an unfriendly look but didn't answer.

"She _did_. She did something, or you did something, and it changed you." She sucked in an icy breath. "What was it? What did you do?"

He was quiet so long, she thought he was not going to reply at all.

"It was what I didn't do," he said at last. "I tried, but I couldn't keep them from beating her. Or humiliating her. Best I could do was keep her alive."

There was a tense set to his big shoulders, and a muscle ticked in his scarred jaw.

"In the end, I failed her," he said from between clenched teeth.

Arya stared at him, stewing over what he said, and what he didn't say. So consumed with the puzzle was she that she ignored her horse and let him meander to a stop, nosing around the snow in search of something to eat. The Hound kept plodding on, unconcerned with her lack of progress.

When it came to her, she exclaimed in astonishment, "You _love_ her!"

He whipped his head around, spearing her with the fiercest, angriest, most hostile look she'd ever seen on his hideous face. She prodded her bay into motion once more and followed after him.

"You love her!" she repeated, more out of amazement than anything else.

He looked around at the naked trees flanking them, at the snow drifting up their trunks, clearly pretending she wasn't there. In time, they rounded a corner, and the woods cleared, and there was Winterfell in the distance. It looked ancient, indomitable, calling to Arya like nothing else could.

"I don't expect anything from her," the Hound said after they had begun the long advance over the snowy plain. "I never did. I know she's not for me. Her destiny is to whelp brats for some high-strung lordling, so he can continue his precious bloodline."

That muscle ticked in his cheek again. He was clearly disturbed at the idea of Sansa bearing another's children, but resigned to its inevitability.

"All I can do is protect her. Better than I did before, this time. Don't have to worry about Joffrey this time, the mad cunt." He peered at her through long, dark coils of hair. "What's your brother like? Will he be treating her well?"

"Of course he will," Arya replied absently, her mind whirling with implications and stunning new facts. "He's our brother, after all."

Now it was his turn to stop in his tracks. For a long moment, he merely stared at her, incredulous. She wondered what had shocked him until she realized how naive she was, to think that a brother would naturally protect his sibling.

"Oh," she said lamely as her gray ambled by. "I forgot."

His expression was furious, hostile, and she was suddenly very glad for how _changed_ he was, because she was quite certain the Hound from before the king's visit to Winterfell would have gutted her in that moment and left her corpse to freeze right on top of the horse, still in the saddle.

"At least one of us can forget," he snarled.

His big hand came up to finger the scars, tracing around where his ear should be, and Arya felt profoundly, weirdly bad.

"I'm sorry," she said. At his snort of disbelief, she protested, "I _am_. I am! I did not mean to remind you of… anything."

" 'Anything'. Aye, a good way to refer to my dear brother. 'Gregor' doesn't quite capture the extent of him, does it? Nor does 'the Mountain'. Another mad cunt. You're mad as fuck, too. I'm surrounded by madmen. Ain't nobody sane anymore."

"Not even you?"

"Especially not me." His laugh was without humor. "Thought I was, once. Your sister made me see that I wasn't, not by far." His eyes went faraway, then. "Thought I was, again, after you left me to die. Perhaps I was, even, just a little. Or approaching it, at least. But then…"

The Hound compressed his lips, a clear sign he was still not about to reveal to her what had occurred in the interim between his near-death and his reappearance with the Brotherhood.

"And now I've gone more mad than ever. Might well be that this scrying shite is just a sign that I've finally lost my mind. Makes more sense than me staring into buggering _flames_ and seeing messages from a god I don't even fucking believe in."

He kicked his roan into a canter, and Arya followed him until they were approaching Winterfell's massive main gate, feeling its pull on her more the closer they drew. She felt tears pool in her eyes, unwelcome, unbidden, unavoidable. She had thought, many times, that she'd never see it again. It wouldn't be the same without her parents and other brothers. But Jon was here, and Sansa, and they were going to rebuild their family, one way or another.

"I'm glad you're here, wolf-bitch," the Hound said, surprising her yet again that morning. "Thought I'd have to sneak or kill my way in. Be easier with a Stark at my side."

"Glad I can help," she snapped, and nudged her horse closer to the guard tower.

"Who be there?" called a voice.

"Arya Stark." She glanced back over her shoulder at the Hound. "And companion."

His snort curled her lips in humor.

Even at this distance, she could see the way the guard's eyes widened.

"I— Hugh, send a message— I should get permission— Hugh, go _now_ —"

"What danger are we two?" Arya asked, shrugging and spreading her hands to indicate that they were a mere trifle. "Just a pair of us against all the soldiers in Winterfell? If you can't handle us, I have doubts you can handle the Lannisters."

The guard, visibly waffling, finally turned and nodded to an unseen fellow, and the gate began to raise.

"Fucking hell," the Hound breathed beside her. She knew he was unimpressed with the lax security, and suspected he'd have harsh words about it for whoever was in charge of it. She merely hummed in agreement and nudged her horse forward.

As their mounts trudged into the muddy courtyard, she was aware of drawing all eyes, and it was an odd, prickly sensation. She had a sickening sense of not belonging here, not anymore, that she had changed too much to fit and had to shoehorn herself into place.

She glanced at the Hound and saw on his face the same resignation, the same stoicism, to be gawked at so openly, and realized that this was his experience every time he went anywhere. With that huge body, that _face_ , he'd be met by curiosity and disgust no matter where he was. Pity twisted through her and she turned her head away so he'd not see it.

At the stables, they dismounted, and Arya made for the main hall.

"You— you should wait until you're summoned—" another guard began, but she ignored him, the Hound at her heels.

She passed by a young squire, dark of hair and eye, as he performed a clumsy advance on a training dummy. "Your lead foot is too far ahead," she murmured to him. "That's why your balance is shite."

"And your second hand is holding the grip too high," added the Hound. "Need to be ready to cup the pommel so you can rotate the sword as you turn to the next sad fucker you'll be fighting."

The squire blinked big brown eyes at both of them as they strode away.

"…Thank you?" he called after them. Arya waved a hand negligently in response. The Hound just ignored him.

Surefooted, Arya led the way with perfect confidence to the great hall, last seen by her while their family hosted the farewell feast the night before their departure for King's Landing.

It was quite different than she recalled, almost barren in its emptiness, bereft as it was of the beautiful tapestries sewn by her mother and her ladies. The old benches were gone, and the crude-hewn new ones had no velvet cushions or wolf-carved supports. There was no fire in the grate and just a few torches in the sconces by the head table, leaving the space cold and gloomy and dim.

On the other end of the hall was a long table, and seated in the middle, on the far side, a lone figure bent over a huge leather-bound ledger, her slender white fingertip tracing along a line so as to not lose her place.


	3. Chapter 3

The shuffle of their boots on the worn stones drew the figure's— Sansa's- attention as they approached, and for a long, quivering moment, they stared at each other.

Sansa looked so… adult. So mature. All the puppy fat had left her cheeks, and she was quite a bit taller, Arya saw with resentment. Her sunset hair rippled unbound down her back and shoulders, and her face was as radiantly beautiful in adulthood as it had promised to be in childhood, though… hard, somehow. As cold as the stone walls surrounding them. Arya and the Hound were clearly not the only ones who had experienced some changes.

From behind her, the Hound stepped forward into the feeble pool of light surrounding the table, and Sansa sucked in a noisy gasp, her entire body twitching in shock. Arya could see her sister's blue eyes flicking back and forth between them, her face a picture of bewilderment.

Quick, like a rabbit, she darted around the end of the table to stand within arm's reach, and wrung her hands.

"Arya," she whispered, staring at her sister, and then turned her gaze to the Hound and said, "Sandor," in a voice that was heavy with meaning, almost aching with it.

Arya blinked. As shocked as she'd been to learn of the Hound's _tendre_ for Sansa, she had never once considered that Sansa might _return_ those feelings.

"Little bird," he was replying to Sansa, and there was an ache in his voice, too.

 _Little bird_? Arya's head was whirling. Far more had happened between them than she'd realized. The Hound hadn't told her the half of it.

Sansa swayed on her feet, her face pale as milk, and for a moment Arya worried she'd faint. But the Hound was there before Arya had finished the thought, catching Sansa against him, and she positively melted in his embrace.

"I thought… I heard the Hound was doing horrible things in the Riverlands. I knew it wasn't you, it had to be someone wearing your helm… but you'd only give up that helm if you were dead… I thought you were _dead_ , Sandor."

She pressed her face to his chest.

"Could have been me, little bird. You know what I'm capable of."

Arya narrowed her eyes. He had her sister swooning in his arms, and he was trying to remind her of his past atrocities? He was utter shite at courting a woman, for sure.

Sansa lifted her head, looking full into his face with not a single wince to have those gruesome scars mere inches away. "I do," was all she said. "But I know you wouldn't have done those things."

"Still believing in fairy tales," he sneered. "I'm a killer, and well you know it, girl."

"I'm a killer, now, too," Sansa countered promptly, and untangled herself from him to stand, straight and regal, on her own. "I'm not the same useless little bird you knew."

He stared at her a long, silent moment. "No, you're not. And I'm not the same man I was before, either."

Sansa gazed searchingly into his eyes. Arya wondered what she was looking for, and when her sister smiled, Arya wondered what she had found there.

"I prayed for you," Sansa murmured. "I prayed, and the gods answered my prayers. Most of them, at least." Her smile turned mysterious. "There are still one or two that have yet to come to pass. But now I know they _could_."

He shot her an impatient glance. "What the hell does that mean, little bird?"

But she only laughed and spun away to face Arya, throwing her arms around her and tugging her into a soft, perfumed hug.

Arya stood rigid in her embrace, unused to physical displays of anything resembling affection, but her thirst for it, her longing for family, soon overcame her, and she found herself clutching her sister, fists bunched in the wool of her gown.

And crying. _Crying_. The shame of it pierced her to her core, but she couldn't seem to stop. And when she pulled back, she saw Sansa was weeping, too. Behind her, the Hound was watching with mingled derision— he was not one for tears— and poorly-hidden longing as his gaze swept over Sansa's form.

Arya shot him a warning glance. He'd touch her sister over her dead body, and she was much harder to kill than she'd been before. He just rolled his eyes at her— a second time in as many days!— and she couldn't keep a giggle from breaking loose.

Sansa was startled into a giggle of her own, and soon they were overcome with mirth, laughing and laughing until they were bent over and clutching their ribs while the Hound watched with arms crossed over his chest, doing a poor job of disguising his impatience. It was apparent he thought them out of their heads, and perhaps they were. Perhaps they'd all been driven to insanity by the events of the last few years.

And who could blame them? As he'd said earlier, the whole world was mad. There was no one with room to judge, not anymore.

"Tell me," Arya gasped at last, finally calming from her slight hysteria, "where is Jon?"

Sansa wouldn't say a word about Jon, or how they'd gotten Winterfell back, or what she'd been doing since they'd last seen each other, until they were all three of them snugged into the family's solar with a merry blaze in the grate and a meal on its way. This room, unlike the hall, had been made as comfortable as possible, even if its furnishings were all new to Arya and clearly gathered from variety of sources, unlike the matched set of feather-stuffed chairs their family had enjoyed before.

But there were a few tapestries keeping the cold to the damp stone walls, and a thick rug on the floor, and plump cushions that Arya happily placed under her arse and at her back. Sansa smilingly placed a little needlepointed stool at Arya's feet, and she did not scruple even a moment to put her boots on it, mud be damned. It was the first time in years she'd been so comfortable.

Soon, a servant who looked suspiciously like a Wildling, if the snarled hair and ragged furs she wore were any indication, arrived bearing a huge tray covered with bread, cheese, cold meat, and to Arya's amazement, a dish of little golden cakes.

"Lemon cakes?" she said, her tone one of awe. "How did you get lemons up here? They don't even have them in the Reach in the Winter, you have to go all the way to Dorne for them."

Smoothly, Sansa took the dish of cakes and handed them back to the girl.

"We don't want these," she said.

"But what—"

"Eat them yourself," Sansa suggested coldly. A smooth alabaster mask seemed to have fallen over her face. "Give them to the pigs. Do whatever you wish with them. I won't have them at my table, these or any others."

After the girl had backed away with the despised cakes, Arya tentatively said, "But those are your favorite—"

"Baelish brought the lemons," Sansa hissed. "He thinks to buy his way back into my good graces, to make me beholden enough to marry him. As if such a thing exists that could make me forgive—"

She felt abruptly silent, leaning heavily back in her chair, and stared moodily at the battered surface of the table while nibbling on a thumbnail.

Arya met the Hound's gaze across the table and saw there the same confusion and concern she herself felt.

"Sansa…" she began hesitantly. "What—

"What did he do?" Sansa interrupted. That hardness was back in her face, and stress turned the skin around her eyes crepey. Abruptly, she resembled their mother so closely that Arya felt a shock run through her. "He did everything. He lied to me. He betrayed and tricked me. He made promises and bargains, all to his own benefit, and none of it to mine."

She fell back in her chair again, head hitting the tall back with a gentle thud and her hands clutching the curved arms. She closed her eyes.

"And he tells me he did it all for _me_. So I can be his queen one day, after he's schemed his way to the Iron Throne. Like he's doing me a _favor_. Like he's fulfilling my dreams. Except I never wanted any of that. Not after I saw what Joffrey was like. Not after I realized the truth about Cersei. If that's what becomes of a woman when she's queen of the seven kingdoms… I would die first."

Sansa's eyes opened, and they were eerily pale. She rolled her head to look at the Hound.

"Not after I learned about real courage and nobility. Yes, I mean you, Sandor, and if you insult me for it, I'll slap you."

He said nothing, but that muscle ticked in his good cheek again.

Arya's mind was flicking through all possible scenarios. She'd never seen Sansa like this; upset, scolding, yes, but this Sansa was like a fresh-minted blade, as shiny and brittle as it was dangerous. What could Littlefinger have done to turn her sister half-mad?

She ran a discerning gaze over Sansa, looking for the clues and hints one could find by looking instead of listening. Even in the near-stifling warmth of the solar, her sister wore a gown that came right up to her chin, instead of the scoop-necked frocks she had favored in her youth, and had not removed the furred cloak over it.

Her her hands were as slim and white and graceful as before, but now they bore faint trails of scars. And in the sliver of throat that showed between gown and cloak was another silvery mark, two crescents with points facing each other.

A bite mark.

And positioned so it could only have come from behind.

"Was it Baelish who raped you, or someone else?" Arya therefore asked.

Sansa jerked, her head whipping around, and her expression could only be described as 'belligerent'.

"No," she said coldly. "He just arranged for my sale to the one who did. My _dear husband_. Ramsay Snow."

A creaking sound drew Arya's attention. Her gaze flicked across the table to the Hound. His grip on the arms of his chair had tightened to the point of crushing the wood.

"Is he still alive?" he asked, a deadly sound, like the way Ice had sounded as it passed through their father's neck.

"I killed him myself," Sansa replied, and smiled a smile so chilling that Arya could only stare. "Fed him to his own dogs."

The Hound smiled, too, and it was a gruesome sight.

"Good," he said. "Now we just have to figure out the best way to kill that cunt, Baelish. Nothing so easy as a dagger. Too good for him. You still got the dogs?"

Sansa tsked and shook her head. "We can't kill him yet. The Vale's army comprises the majority of the North's forces. Sweetrobin is still too young to rule without a lord protector, and I've no way to be certain the new one would support our cause."

"But after this is all over?" Her smile broadened. "Can I count on your both to help me with it?"

"My lady," said a stiff voice from the doorway. "Pod told me your sister has returned home."

They all craned their heads to see Brienne of Tarth standing rigidly, waiting for permission to enter. Her eyes, extraordinarily beautiful and incongruous in comparison to the lackluster rest of her, took in the scene before her, widening when she recognized the Hound, and her hand came to rest upon the hilt of her sword.

"Ah, Brienne," said Sansa, and her smile sweetened with breathtaking speed to something warm and welcoming. "You know you don't have to hover at the door, come right in!"

"My lady—"

Sansa stood and waved the infamous Maid of Tarth to the chair she had just vacated.

Brienne dragged her hostile gaze away from the Hound, with whom she had begun an ocular duel to the death. She sat with clear reluctance, and tried again. "My lady—"

"Will you eat something? I shall make you a plate." Sansa bustled around the platters, selecting choice tidbits for the newcomer.

"Lady Sansa!" The female knight had apparently hit her peak tolerance for her lady's evasive ways.

Sansa's mouth formed an injured little moue and she thumped the laden plate down in front of her shield before planting her own rump in the fourth chair, which just so happened to be right at the Hound's side.

"I heard your sister has returned home, and wished to see if you had any tasks for me, or changes to be made regarding security."

The Hound's mouth opened, surely to castigate her for the easy entrance they had gained earlier, but Arya beat him to it.

"You need to see that the gatekeepers are less gullible," she said in a mild tone. "They demanded no proof of who I claimed to be."

"And they let me in as if I were a tame lapdog. As if any of them could be a challenge for me. This big bitch is the only one in Westeros who could take me." The Hound sneered as Brienne bristled. "If she weren't here, and we wanted to take Winterfell from you, we could have done it. We just walked right into your hall. You'd have been dead by now. Or worse."

He peered narrowly at Sansa. "And now I know you've seen worse, girl, so you'd best take this seriously. I would die to protect you, but I'd rather not. You have to help me."

Sansa reached out and touched his wrist. "You're right, Sandor. Brienne will improve it right away, I'm sure."

Arya's stomach lurched queasily, as it did every time the Hound made one of his stunningly unexpected statements of devotion toward Sansa, and quickly returned her half-eaten chicken leg on her plate.

Her reaction was nothing in comparison to Brienne's, however; the lady warrior's mouth had fallen open in shock and her eyes flicked back and forth between her lady and the very unwelcome man seated to her right.


	4. Chapter 4

"You _know_ each other?" Brienne demanded, her usual deferential tone forgotten. She stared, horrified, at where Sansa's hand still rested on the Hound's hairy paw. "You know each other _well_? Well enough for you to talk to her that way? For her to use your given name? For her to _touch_ you?"

The Hound sliced her to ribbons with glacial gray eyes. Sansa _blushed_. Arya averted her gaze to the far corner of the solar, swigged half her cup of ale in an attempt to settle her food, and wished herself anywhere but there. Back in Braavos, perhaps, or even King's Landing, so she'd be that much closer to murdering Cersei.

"So you haven't told us where Jon is, yet," she said into the tension in a blatantly desperate attempt to change the subject. "When I heard he was named King in the North, you could have knocked me over with a feather. Ahaha." Her laugh was a sad, limp thing.

"I'll go begin those adjustments to the security perimeter, my lady," Brienne said coolly, standing, hand on sword once more.

"Thank you, Brienne," Sansa replied, looking very demure as she stole glances at her brutish paramour from beneath long auburn lashes. Arya did not know how much more she could bear.

Once the sworn shield had gone, indignation practically vibrating off her broad shoulders, and the other two continued to sit there and stare moonily at each other, Arya decided enough was enough and sought their attention by banging her now-empty cup on the table. "Sansa! Is Jon not here? Where has he gone? Why are there Wildlings crawling all over Winterfell?"

Sansa dragged her attention from the Hound to stare at Arya and then huffed out a sigh as she unfastened her cloak and pushed it to fall over the back of her chair. Arya felt almost lightheaded with relief when she understood it meant Sansa felt safe enough with them to unburden herself of one layer of 'armor'.

"He's gone to Dragonstone. Tyrion summoned him to treat with Danaerys. And they've sailed there, which I do _not_ like, since it takes them so close to King's Landing. Our spies tell us the Narrow Sea is riddled with Cersei's ships. All that's needed is for one Lannister captain to have a good day, and the North has lost its last, best hope for victory."

Sansa pursed her lips, aggravation clear on her fair features.

" _Which_ we almost did when we took Winterfell back. He refused to listen to my advice about how to defeat Ramsey—" she snarled the name, her face lupine until she composed herself and continued "—and if I had not held back the Vale's men until the crucial moment, as I had advised him to do, he would have lost. We would have lost. Jon would have been dead, Ramsey would still hold Winterfell, and I'd have killed myself to keep myself out of Ramsay's hands."

Arya processed the information at the same time she tucked away her continued amazement that her silly, vain, giggly sister had somehow, over the years, become a cool-headed master strategist.

But she wasn't the only one.

"I expect you've heard about the Freys," Arya said casually, taking up her chicken leg once more. As she gnawed on it, she watched Sansa and even the Hound for their reactions.

He scowled, but looked clueless. Sansa said, "Yes, we had a raven not long ago—"

Then she stopped, her eyes wide as she stared at Arya.

"What did you do, wolf-bitch?" the Hound demanded.

"Don't call her that," Sansa scolded absently. "Arya, was it you? Truly?"

She didn't answer, just let the answer shine in her eyes, as feral as Nymeria's had been.

"You did," breathed Sansa. "You slaughtered the entire Frey family."

"Just the men," Arya clarified. "I don't kill women if I can help it."

"So there are no Frey men left? At all?" rumbled the Hound.

"None," she said, no small amount of satisfaction in her voice. "The ones I didn't poison, I hunted down and killed one-by-one." Her mouth twisted in disgusted recollection. "Pathetically easy. They relied too much on treachery. No fighting skill whatsoever. Just blind hacking, as if they were chopping wood instead of defending their lives. You'd have been furious."

She shot an wry grin at him, surprising him as much as herself. Since when did she have a laugh with the Hound?

He studied her for a moment before a ghastly smile stretched his scars. "We'll have to spar, you and I."

"You'll find me more of a challenge than you did last time," Arya replied coolly.

"Reckon I will." He redirected himself to Sansa. "The Brotherhood without Banners should be arriving today or tomorrow. I was traveling with them. We were making for Eastwatch-by-the-Sea."

"Why are you with them?" Arya asked. "After that duel they made you fight, and then how they took every last coin off you, they're the last bunch I'd expect to find you with."

"I've my reasons," the Hound rasped, clearly indisposed to sharing any of them.

"Will you go with them, when they leave?" Sansa asked.

"Thought I would. Not sure anymore." He slanted her a glance before turning his attention to his plate, which she'd just refilled— for the third time— without his having asked. Without another word, he applied himself to the slabs of meat, bread, and cheese.

"The destruction of House Frey leaves The Twins without a lord," Arya said.

"The North should claim it before someone else decides it's a fat plum just waiting to be picked," added the Hound from around a mouthful of food.

"Greywater Watch is closest," Sansa mused. "The Reeds and Freys have been at each other's throats for generations. They'll jump at the chance. And Howland Reed was one of Father's closest friends and allies. We can trust his loyalty to the North. I'll send him a raven right away."

She stood, and the Hound shocked Arya for what seemed like the hundredth time that day by rising to his feet as well, as was polite when a lady had risen.

"Will you… come with me?" Sansa asked them. "It's been so long since I've seen you. I don't want to spend a minute apart."

The Hound grunted his assent, and she looked at Arya, who was once again stricken by the full force of her sister's beauty. She didn't begrudge it to Sansa; she'd never had expectations of comeliness, and indeed if Sansa's last few years were any measure, it was more trouble that it was worth. She'd much rather her own middling looks, easily downplayed or disguised if need be.

The Hound seemed just as afflicted, trying to seem detached but unable to keep his eyes off Sansa for long, his gaze always returning to her, like a raven flying home again.

Arya felt abruptly overwhelmed by all the emotion displayed that day; she was unaccustomed to feeling much at all, besides the need for vengeance, and with sudden clarity she understood the Hound's typically sour attitude; it was wearying, being buffeted on all sides by such oversentiment. She had to work to keep her face and tone bland as she replied.

"I think I might just rest here a while," Arya therefore replied. "I haven't sat in a chair this soft since I left King's Landing, so I think I'll enjoy it as long as I can."

To her dismay, her sister swooped in for another embrace, and she was a caught in a net of amber and bronze as Sansa's hair fell around them. It smelled of lemon and made her remember old days, before the world had ended and started anew. A wave of nostalgia broke over her, nearly pulling her under.

Sansa straightened. "Nap if you like," she said, gesturing to the low, padded bench against the wall. "It doesn't look it, but it's quite comfortable." She bustled toward a cupboard, saying, "I'll just get you a blanket, a pillow—"

"She can get those herself, little bird," said the Hound, somehow managing to sound impatient and gentle at the same time. Arya felt the urge to shout at Sansa rising in her throat. She just wanted to be alone so she didn't have to pretend to be so happy. She didn't want to upset her sister; Sansa didn't deserve it, especially after what she'd endured.

Sansa smiled. "Of course she can." She went to him, then, wrapping her hands around his elbow.

Arya was struck by how… well they looked together, both tall, with very straight backs and thrown-back shoulders. As she watched them proceed down the hall, away from her, she heard the low murmur of Sansa's voice, and how the Hound tilted his dark head down to her. Sansa looked up at him in the same moment, and they seemed transfixed with each other for the span of a few breathless seconds before each looked away, coughing a little in embarrassment.

Arya dropped her head back against the chair and shut her eyes on a short laugh. It was the damnedest coincidence that the Hound ended up knowing both Stark sisters so well, and that they'd met up on the way to Winterfell, and that Brienne would be there, and-

 _The gods are playing dice with our lives,_ she thought. _There are no coincidences._

A footfall on the steps; no, two. Men, and young, if the lightness of the treads was any indication. Arya did not move even a finger but kept her muscles loose, ready to grasp Needle the moment she needed it.

There was a light rap on the door frame. Arya did not open her eyes. "Yes?"

"M'lady," mumbled a male voice, "it seems that someone is here that you know, and he wanted to say—"

"To say what?" she prompted when he fell silent.

"To say—" the young man began.

"Hello," finished another voice, and Arya's eyes shot open to see the inept squire from before, standing twitchily in the door frame. Her gaze moved past him to another, taller fellow standing at his back.

Her eyes locked with his, just as blue as she remembered, or perhaps more. She sighed; of course he was here, too. Of course.

"Thanks," she told the squire. He scuttled away, leaving only herself and—

"Gendry," he said. "In case you forgot."

"I didn't," she said shortly.

Arya studied him. He'd gotten taller, though only by an inch or so, but had filled out considerably. He must have been banging away on an anvil 20 hours a day, she mused. "Come in." It looked like it would take quite a bit of food to keep him going. She waved him to the table and gestured to the little the Hound had left uneaten. "Help yourself."

He entered slowly, cautiously, as if he were trying to scope out a trick. She watched in amusement until he deemed the situation safe. He took the Hound's vacant seat and simply pulled close the nearest platter, methodically demolishing its contents before moving on to the next, and the next.

Arya took a clean goblet and filled it from a frost-rimed pitcher of ale, setting it before him with a thunk. He glanced up, wary.

"So what happened to you after the Brotherhood sold you to the red witch?" she asked casually. "And how did you get from there to here?"

"She brought me to Dragonstone." After a brief pause, during which he flushed and looked somewhat embarrassed, Gendry continued, "They put leeches on me, to take my blood, then threw me in the dungeon. Nice fellow got me out, though, and put me in a boat. I was supposed to row to King's Landing but—"

Here he coughed and rubbed the back of his neck, looking sheepish. "I got turned around and ended up at The Whispers. Was out of food and water by then, so I left the boat and walked until I found a road, foraging and living rough along the way. Followed it to Dyre Den. Happened they needed a smith, so I worked there a few months until I could afford passage over to Gulltown. Found work as a smith there, too. Stayed until I had enough, then got on a ship to Pentos."

Arya blinked. She had anticipated a disjointed ramble across Westeros, but this?

"Why Pentos?"

He looked at her as if she were hopelessly stupid. "Because that's how you get to Qohor."

She stared at him, aghast. "But that's where they follow the Dark God. They make blood sacrifices of their own children!"

"Lot of crazy goat-fuckers, they are." He shook his head in amusement. "The bit I learned about R'hllor kept me in good stead, though, because they had a temple there and I took up with them. Weaseled my way into apprenticeship to a master smith."

"You went all the way to Qohor just to be an apprentice again?"

Gendry eyed her closely, and it wasn't an entirely friendly stare. "Come with me," he said at last, and was striding off before she could tell him to bugger off.

His seeming coldness didn't deter her any, thought, and she kept firing questions at him as she jogged in his wake.

"Why Qohor? How'd you get there from Pentos? Why are you at Winterfell? How did you get back? _When_ did you get back?"

They passed the squire, then the big lady knight, Brienne, who nodded and watched them warily as they made their way toward the smithy. The forge was still blazing in spite of the smith's absence.

"Thanks, Luron," Gendry said to the boy who'd been stoking the fire, and Luron scampered off.

Gendry ducked behind a long counter and began digging through the contents of the shelves and drawers.

"To answer your questions, last to first: I set foot back on Westeros almost a year ago."

He huffed in irritation and began plunking items— tongs, most of them rusted, and a half-dozen hammers he wielded as if they weighed nothing, and broken tangs awaiting resmelting.

"I took a barge down the river to Volantis, then a ship to Pentos, and from Pentos back to Gulltown." Gendry continued, depositing an armload of antlers, narrowly avoiding puncturing himself on a particularly pointy one. He glanced at her before ducking down to unearth more dubious treasures.

"I came because it's your home. I figured you'd return to it eventually."

His voice was muffled, but Arya's sharp ears heard it perfectly. A dart of… something… went through her as she stood there, stock-still, hardly able to breathe. She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, Gendry straightened, holding aloft what appeared to be a long dagger.

"I hid it in case someone felt like nosing around where they shouldn't," he announced, then shot her a saucy grin. "Hid it a little too well, maybe. Anyway, here."

With an utter lack of ceremony, he held it out to her, and when she didn't move, he took her hand and plopped the dagger onto her palm.

"It's a dagger," she said flatly. "I've seen daggers before."

"But is it just any dagger?" He went back to the counter and began replacing all the things he'd excavated in his search. "Take it out of the scabbard."

Arya dragged her eyes from him and stared down at the dagger in her hand. It was almost as long as Needle, and as she pulled the scabbard off, she could feel how exquisitely balanced it was, despite weighing almost nothing. Double-bladed, it was, with a wicked point at the end. She turned it this way and that, trying to understand what Gendry was trying to tell her with with it.

Wood popped and shifted in the forge, throwing light and shadows crazily before settling down. The red-black flash along the length of the blade made that dart of sensation pass through her again, a thrill of shock and alarm that had her gasping for breath.

"This is Valyrian steel," she breathed.

"And that's the 'why'," he finished, wrapping up his tale. "I went to Qohor so I could learn to forge it."

She blinked up at him, the dagger still in her hands, utterly shocked. "But… why did you want to know that? You can make a fine living as a regular smith."

Gendry just grinned.

"I figured one way or another, we'd need it," was his reply. "If they let me have you, I'll need a way to make a living. Be more than just a regular smith, because you're high-born. Shouldn't have to live over the smithy in some dank town somewhere. You're used to better, and I want to keep you well. I'll give you a proper house, somewhere nice."

Arya blinked again, and wondered what the film in her vision was until she realized that it was tears.

"But if that doesn't work," he continued, "if they think I'm not good enough to wed a Stark, being a bastard, I figure we'll need the best blades to make my plan work, because it won't be easy. And now that I know about the wights, and how Valyrian steel can kill them… well, I'll be kept busy just making whatever I can, to outfit as many men as possible."

He squinted around the smithy. "Might need more men for the preliminary work. Definitely will need more materials." He laughed. "And more hours in the day."

"What— what's your plan?" Arya's voice broke on the last word.

"Oh, that." Gendry played at nonchalance as he sauntered over to the forge, unbothered by the intense heat blowing outward from it, and stared into the flames. "I'd reclaim my heritage. Be recognized as my father's son."

"You found out who your father is?"

He nodded grimly at the fire, not her. "I might feel a certain way about it, but I'll think on it later. Right now, I'm glad I can use it to my advantage."

Then he turned back to Arya, and there was something in those blue, blue eyes that seemed… oddly familiar, somehow.

"If they won't let me have you as Gendry Waters," he said, "I'll just have to become Gendry Baratheon."


	5. Chapter 5

And her tears dried up, just like that, as if they had never been. Her eyes searched his, looking for the truth. If he were the son of King Robert, now that all of Cersei's children were dead, he certainly would have the power to grant himself a marriage to whomever he wished. But…

"They'll never let you be king," she whispered. "The Lannisters, the Targaryen girl… even Jon. It would throw us all into an even worse war that we're in now."

He frowned at her in confusion. "King? Gods, no. Who'd want that?" He gave a short laugh. "No, it's for you."

"For me?" she parroted faintly.

"I'd be good enough for you, then."

"Oh, Gendry," Arya said, feeling very sad and tired. "You were always good enough for me."

"Not in anyone's eyes but yours," he said stubbornly.

"And I meant it, before, when I said that we could be family. I don't think I meant it in a— in a marriage kind of way," she rushed to say, gaze averted awkwardly, "but that no matter what, we'll help each other, and care for each other. That's what families for for each other. At least, that's what Starks do for each other."

He said nothing, just watched her.

"So let's… let's not make any decisions about anything," she concluded. "There's too much to worry about, with the war to the south and whatever's happening up at the Wall. We have so much to do, and no time to spend on ourselves until it's all over."

"As long as you keep yourself alive until then," he said at last. If he were disappointed that she had not had more favorable reaction to his announcements— any of them, all of them— he didn't show it.

Arya nodded. "And you, too."

She stepped closer, hands outstretched to return the dagger to him.

He quirked a brow, again looking at her as if she were stupid. "I made it for you. Take it with you."

Arya pulled her arms back in and hugged it to her chest. "Thank you," she whispered, and then fled at top speed.

When she returned to the solar, she was relieved find it still empty and flopped down on the padded bench, Needle and the new dagger together at her side, and tugged a blanket up to her chin. She felt unpleasantly weak with shock and dismay. Gendry's tale was fantastical on its own, but his motives for it all… she was not sure what to think about it. She recalled him with fondness, it was true, and had spent more than a few moments over the intervening years thinking about him, wondering how and where he was.

But he was talking about big things, now. Important things. Permanent things. And he was basing these things on the girl he had known, all those years and miles ago. She was so far removed from that girl, now, that sometimes she didn't recognize herself anymore. She was a girl, and a girl was no one.

When she'd left the House of Black and White, she'd reclaimed herself as Arya Stark, and she _felt_ like a Stark— just the name made her lungs seize with recognition and a fierce, burning devotion. But 'Arya'… who was that, really? She could scarcely recall things she'd liked to do. What had been her favorite food? What song did she sing in odd, bored moments? She thought she might have been good at archery, once…

Now, all she recalled with any clarity was Needle… Nymeria… a burning, ceaseless need to avenge her broken family… her siblings, though they'd all gone soft-focus and vague. She could barely remember Robb's face, she realized with a shock, or Bran's or Rickon's. Sansa had been just an impression of red hair and blue eyes and the knowledge, not the memory, of a pretty face until they'd met again earlier. Even Jon's face was hazy. She remembered a tumble of dark curls, and gentle eyes, and a smile all the sweeter for its rarity, but the particulars… the exact slope of his nose, or breadth of his forehead were gone to her.

To her chagrin, the image of the Hound's unfortunate visage had not dimmed at all. With the exception of a few new lines of suffering etched between his eyes, he was just the same old mutt as ever.

And Gendry… he, too, had been more of a surprise than a remembered face when he had appeared in the doorway. He'd seen a lot, since the Brotherhood had sold him to the red woman. Doubtless, he was not the same person he had been, either. Perhaps… perhaps they could both get to know each other again?

But not for a while. Certainly not while they were still at war. Arya needed to be sharp for the trials ahead. Unencumbered. Free to act without distractions or obligations. She knew her particular skills were not common in Westeros, and that they would be in demand in the conflict to come.

Arya closed her eyes, intending to rest, if not sleep, but footsteps thudding up the stairs had her staring up at the ceiling with a sigh. She sat up and faced the door in time to find Brienne lurching into the solar, the squire hot on her heels.

"Where's Lady Sansa?" Brienne demanded. Her face was bone-pale except for a patch of hectic color on each cheek.

"She and the Hound went to send a raven," Arya told her. She thrust aside the blanket and stood. "She should be with the maester."

"I just saw the maester," Brienne said, and waved a slip of paper at her.

"What has happened?"

Shutters seemed almost to fall over the sworn shield's magnificent eyes. "I must tell my lady first. I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Arya said easily, and thrust both her blades through her belt. She liked Brienne's loyalty. "Let's split up and search. I'll search the godswood and glass garden, you look in the towers."

She turned to the squire.

"You."

"Podrick, my lady."

"Podrick, you search the crypts. We'll meet in the center of the courtyard in ten minutes."

He nodded and dashed off, Brienne thundering after him. Arya ran lightly down the stairs and was soon headed across the courtyard toward her destination.

"What's wrong?" Gendry asked from the side, effortlessly keeping pace with her. He flashed her a grin. "Saw you dash past the smithy."

"Need to find my sister," she said. "Brienne's had news."

He nodded. "Tell me where to search."

"Search the godswood for me, then. I'll be in the gardens."

He peeled off and began pelting through the ancient trees. Arya bolted straight through, taking more time than she'd have liked to wrench open the door to the gardens. Once through it, however, she was brought to a sudden, horrified stop. The precious glass was all smashed, and nothing was left but the skeletal frame, all the plants within dead and brittle and brown.

Her mother had loved the gardens. It was the thing that made living so far north, so far away from the rich tidal plains of the riverlands, worthwhile. Grief swept over Arya, so strong she almost crumpled to her knees, and she stood gasping among the scattered shards until a piercing whistle sounded from the godswood.

She followed the sound to the heart tree, where Gendry was standing with Sansa and the Hound. The leaves around the tree's roots had been disturbed, and there was dirt clinging to the Hound's knees and Sansa's gown. Their faces were as blank as statues, however, so she wasn't learning anything from them.

"Brienne has gotten a raven and needs to tell you about it," she informed her sister. "She'll be in the courtyard."

Sansa nodded and swept past. The Hound shot Arya an inscrutable look before following.

Gendry joined Arya as they made up the rear, and whispered, "I found them kneeling at the tree and holding hands."

Alarm was a flash of lightning in her belly. She hoped that Sansa's prowess as a tactician made her realize what a disaster it would be to wed without her king's permission. Jon might well have plans to bolster his strength by an alliance with another great house.

And… it was _the Hound_. Arya wasn't as repulsed by him as she had been when they'd first traveled together, but her thoughts of him were still far from sweet, and she did not relish the idea of having him for a goodbrother.

Though, she allowed, watching from behind as he stood a fraction behind her sister, one arm protectively hovering around her waist, he seemed gentle with Sansa— if no one else- and that had to count for something, didn't it? After all she'd been through with Joffrey, then Littlefinger, and lastly Ramsey, Sansa deserved to be treated like porcelain. Even if it was by the Hound. Arya had to admit that, if her sister was taking up with someone, it was good he could defend himself and her, better than almost any man she'd ever met. Issues of appearance and personality aside, no one could fault his skill at fighting.

Arya trudged into the courtyard after them with a sigh. Gendry made for the smithy once more, a half-smile curling his lips when she punched his arm in thanks for his help.

Brienne and Podrick stood in the center of the bustling activity, the sworn shield tapping the pommel of her sword impatiently as she looked around. When her gaze alit on their little group, the tense muscles in her face relaxed fractionally.

"My lady," she began, "I beg forgiveness for summoning you, but I have had a raven." She held up the cylinder of parchment. "May we go somewhere private to discuss its contents?"

"Of course," Sansa murmured, and led the way to the great hall.

Halfway there, Petyr Baelish oozed from the shadows on an intercept course.

"My lady," he said, making Arya long to slit him open from stem to stern like a hog destined for the table. If the way the Hound seemed to swell with rage, he was feeling the same. His arm went from hovering over Sansa's waist to locking around it, drawing her into the protective shelter of his huge body.

Littlefinger froze, his gaze traveling over the assembly with what appeared to be mild curiosity, but Arya knew what to look for. The man's pulse was thumping a frantic tattoo in the side of his neck. When he looked her way, and recognition dawned in his eyes, the lines at the corners of his eyes and bracketing his mouth deepened, just a fraction.

 _Yes,_ she thought. _You_ _should_ _be concerned to see me. I know more than you think I do._

"I see a homecoming celebration is in order," Littlefinger said smoothly. "Welcome home, Lady Arya."

She said nothing, and though he was masterful at hiding it, she still could see his tiny flinch at her steely gaze.

He glanced the Hound's way again. "Have you chosen another sworn shield over our lady of Tarth?" Without waiting for confirmation, he continued, "Clegane is taking his new role quite seriously, I see." He forced a light laugh. "At ease, soldier, it's only me, and Lady Sansa and I are old friends."

"Are we?" asked that woman, her tone arctic. The Hound seemed moments from slipping his leash and doing something rash, which Arya very much wanted to see. She had developed an appreciation for the man's ability to wreak mayhem, if for nothing else, over the years.

Silence fell, heavy and taut, until Brienne said, "My lady, we need to discuss the message."

Littlefinger perked up. "Message? Has something happened?"

"Nothing that need concern you, Lord Baelish." Sansa was already gliding away toward the great hall before she'd even finished speaking, the Hound's bulk a sound bulwark between his lady and the rest of the world.

Once arrived, Brienne directed Podrick to ensure all doors were secure. Arya hopped onto the sill of the lone window, the better to see if anyone might be lingering with a bit too much purpose nearby.

"Quietly, all, if you please," Sansa said in a low voice as she seated herself in the seat of governing. She folded her hands on the table before her and turned a receptive face to her sworn shield.

Brienne took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and began to speak.

"A sizable force has left King's Landing, headed north. Their plan is to sail to White Harbor and from there, travel overland to Winterfell."

Sansa's eyes rounded in alarm. "When are they expected to arrive? How much time do we have? Who sent you this message? Can they be trusted?"

Brienne's face pinkened further. "The message says they left King's Landing yesterday. We can expect them before two months pass, I believe."

Sansa's eyes narrowed, pale and piercing. Arya watched with interest. Brienne was hiding something. Arya knew it, and worse, Sansa knew it. Arya had every expectation of fun watching the two women negotiate the deception.

"Your informant's name." It was said flatly, Sansa's tone somehow managing to be imperious and disappointed at the same time. Their mother had been a master of the same tone, Arya thought with nostalgia, and it worked just as beautifully with Brienne, for the big woman visibly flinched and cast her eyes down.

"I am not comfortable sharing that information, my lady," Brienne muttered, staring at the tips of her boat-sized boots as if they were the most interesting things in Westeros.

"Comfort matters little when lives are at stake," was Sansa's cool reply. "His name?"

"I won't betray him, my lady. He told me at great risk to himself." Brienne's head was up again, her color still high and eyes flashing like beryls. "Please just accept my assurance that he is trustworthy."

Sansa stared at her like the little queen she was, her expression haughty, with just a soupçon of incredulity to indicate her disbelief that her vassal might refuse a command.

"I am truly sorry to have to defy you, my lady. But… I cannot betray him. Not after he has risked so much to save me. Us. To save us."

And then Brienne turned and marched from the room— fled, really— her hand clamped on her sword's hilt so tightly that her fingers looked bloodless.

Podrick trudged after her, but before he pushed open the door, Sansa called his name with a winning smile.

"My lady?"

"Podrick, you know who sent the message, don't you?"

He stared at her, eyes wide in terror. He was doomed no matter how he answered, and he knew it.

"I do," he mumbled at last. "But I can't tell you who it is. I can't do that to her. She tries so hard, and is so good, and gets so little in return. I can't take this from her, my lady."

He put his hand on the door but stopped, turning back again.

"But I will tell you that they love each other. They don't know it, even, not really. But that's why she won't say. He worries for her, and sends the message. She worries for him, and defies you." He shrugged. "It's the way of things. Of love. Isn't it?"

He seemed as if he were truly asking her. Arya, too, was interested in an answer, because she wasn't entirely sure she understood what love was, anymore.

Sansa looked down. Bit her lip. When she looked back at Podrick, she seemed to deflate a bit.

"Yes," she replied. "That is the way of things. Sometimes you must compromise even your own values, to protect the ones you love."


	6. Chapter 6

Arya went to bed that night in her old room. The only thing remaining of her childhood was the bed frame; everything else was a mish-mosh of found items jammed in to furnish the room for her at the last minute. She had no idea where the Hound was to stay, nor did she want to. She was just glad her room was on the far side of her parents' room— Jon's now, she supposed— with several thick stone walls between, so she wouldn't be able to hear anything untoward.

Several things had become clear that day, the foremost being that her sister, the Hound, Gendry, even Brienne had a lot more happening in their inner worlds than she had even suspected. She knew people had secrets, of course, but those were usually violent, treacherous secrets.

The idea of secrets being good, being loving and protective, was… odd to her. When she'd last felt love, back before everything went wrong, when her entire family was alive and well in Winterfell together, she'd never had an inkling that there might be a need to withhold any affection she felt. That she should have hidden it. She'd felt an impulse to hug her parents, her brothers— rarely Sansa— and she'd just… done it.

Arya lay there and wondered if she were capable of a good secret, a _loving_ secret, if she wasn't even sure she was capable of love itself. It made her a little sad, as she fell asleep.

"Where have you been?" Sansa asked her sister the next morning, her tone teasing and relaxed, when Arya strolled in just as another Wildling servant came to clean away breakfast.

Arya snatched a piece of cheese from a departing tray and stuffed it in her mouth, then from another, a hunk of bread she dragged hastily through the honey-pot as it was being borne away. She took her time eating that, enjoying how Sansa's curiosity and impatience were getting the best of her.

Arya used the time to study her sister. There was something shiny about her that morning, something languid and heavy-lidded. Something that resembled the way Braavosi whores walked home in the morning, loose-hipped, with satisfaction curling their lips.

 _Oh, gods,_ she thought in horror, _she bedded the Hound last night._

"Is there a supply of moon tea here?" she asked bluntly. "Or in Winter Town? If not, I'll ride out today and bring some back."

Sansa's face was the picture of shock. "How did you— no. Do not tell me. Yes, I have moon tea. I already drank some."

Arya poured herself some ale and peered at her sister over the goblet's rim. "Don't be surprised if Jon is furious to learn you married the Hound."

"How did—" Sansa did not finish, and just threw her hands in the air with a huff. "Jon has nothing to say about it. I've been bought and sold quite enough for one lifetime, thank you very much, and I'll not be used yet again as a bargaining chip. This is my last marriage. Jon will have to accept it."

Then she narrowed her eyes at Arya. "What are you smiling at?"

Arya shrugged. "Just glad you've stopped sacrificing yourself to make others happy. Wish you'd chosen a less fraught time and issue to fight back on, but glad in any case."

Sansa's irritation melted away to one of surprise and then gratitude. And then she was rounding the table and smothering her sister in another hug.

"Eurgh, get off," Arya protested, trying to fend her off, but she was like one of those stupid Ironborn krakens, all limbs and nothing to grasp hold of. Finally Arya relented, relaxing into the embrace, and she murmured, "I have a plan. It will give all of us what we want. But I need your help to make it work."

Sansa drew back, but Arya tugged her close again. "Stay. I don't want anyone to overhear."

Sansa remained, stooped over Arya's chair, her hair a silken curtain around them both, while her little sister whispered in her ear.

And then Sansa smiled.

Some days passed. Sansa's godswood marriage to the Hound remained their secret ( _another good secret,_ Arya thought, adding it to her newly-begun list of them). Arya trained with him and Brienne and Podrick, needing to learn how to wield her new dagger in concert with Needle. She'd seen the method in Braavos, and it was very effective. Gendry worked hard to forge new armor for the Hound, none of his ready-made able to fit on the man's massive form.

Agitated by the advent of Lannister forces in the North, Sansa sent a raven to Jon at Dragonstone, imparting the warning from Brienne's unknown swain. Before long, the tension had stretched them all thin.

One thing that helped lessen it, however, was the near-absence of Petyr Baelish. Oh, he came round sometimes, usually sauntering across the courtyard to impose himself upon Sansa, but that done, he'd disappear for several days, only to come forward to vex them all again. He never seemed bothered by her icy mien, nor the openly hostile glares the Hound sent his way, nor the loving manner in which Brienne fondled her sword's hilt while staring directly at him. After setting them all on edge with a few smooth insinuations, off he'd go to send ravens or plot yet another of the little betrayals he seemed to enjoy so well.

Brienne often commented on it, expressing suspicion that he'd leave off his campaign of harassment against her lady so easily, but Sansa just laughed and told her not to look that gift horse in the mouth.

Things were not always so jovial, however. Though the Northern lords had departed after Jon and Ser Davos had left for Dragonstone, they were still making demands— sometimes daily— via raven for updates. After weeks of Sansa's increasingly strained replies explaining how she had not had any news, a few of them returned, including Lyanna Mormont, who had come upon hearing of Arya's return, and the argumentative Robett Glover.

"I demand some answers!" he growled one day while Sansa was holding court for subjects of the North, and even punctuated his outburst with a slam of his palm against the scarred surface of the table. She'd just finished mediating a dispute between two goat farmers when Glover banged into the hall and demanded an audience.

In the corner, Baelish smirked and lurked as was his custom. Her ever-present shadows, the Hound and Brienne, both shifted their stances. Glover glanced uneasily at them, correctly seeing some pain in his future if he persisted with his lack of respect.

"And when I have any, Lord Glover, I shall impart them to you," replied Sansa, her tone very measured.

He huffed but subsided, sinking back onto his bench while Lyanna Mormont glared holes in him.

"If there is no other business before the King in the North," Sansa began, rising from Jon's chair, but Littlefinger gave a discreet cough and stepped forward, "then let us relinquish the hall to the servants in preparation for supper—"

"If it please my lady…" he began, bowing a bit more theatrically than was warranted.

"Yes, Lord Baelish?" she inquired, taking her seat again.

Leather creaked as the Hound moved once more, subtly shifting so he was between both Sansa and Littlefinger, who noted it with a deepening of that smirk.

He produced from up his sleeve a scroll of tightly-rolled parchment. He placed it gently on the table before her.

"I would ask that my lady sign the bottom of this as witness that I put it into her hand with my own."

He turned back to the spectators and added, "And I welcome the signatures of anyone else who wishes to be known as a witness, as well."

Sansa's eyes had not left him for a moment, wary, as if tracking a snake about to strike.

"What is it?" she asked.

But he only bowed again and backed away. "Take your time reading it first, if you like. I shall await your pleasure—" here, the Hound growled— "in my chambers." And he was gone.

Sansa bent to the scroll, unspooling it, and began to read.

"Aloud, if you please, my lady," said Glover. "If we're all to be witnesses, surely we much know what we've witnessed."

She sighed, shooting him a look of pleading, that he be more amenable, but he just folded his arms across his chest. She drew a deep breath, clearly to bolster her patience, and began.

"Dearest Sansa, you know by now that you possess the deepest devotion that any man, even the—"

She stopped abruptly. "This is a private message for me."

"But he presented it in full court, my lady, and—"

"She said no." The Hound stared at Glover like he wanted to dissect him, and perhaps he did. Glover, smartly, fell silent.

"No, it's…" Sansa paused, her eyes ranging over the page. "I'll leave out the most private parts."

The Hound made a grumbling sound deep in his throat, but she flashed him an adoring smile and he subsided.

"…could ever hope to feel for you," she concluded the sentence, leaving out a key part. "But I know that you will never find the joy I wish you, while so many believe in the lies I have told and the crimes I have committed and blamed on others. And your cool behavior of late has made me see how, as the author of most of your life's misfortunes, you will never come to love me as I love you."

She took in a deep breath.

"I see why you have come to despise me, and how my continued presence in your life brings you nothing but pain. The only thing I can think of, to make amends and bring you a measure of peace, is to make all hidden truths become known. As the only one who knows the extent of these hidden truths, it falls to me to be the one who reveals them. Their full details are on the next page.

"I beg you to, if not think kindly of me, then at least recognize that while my motives were impure and my acts reprehensible, they were all for love of you and your mother. You will never know the extent of my sorrow and regret. Please believe that, while many other sins may be squarely placed at my feet, I had nothing to do with the Frey betrayal of guest right and the murder of Catelyn and your brother Robb.

"With all my affection and respect, I am your

"Petyr."

Sansa looked up, seeming dazed, until her eyes locked with those of the Hound. His steady gaze seemed to bolster her, and she was able to peel away the top sheet of parchment to reveal the second below it. Ranged before them, the court was soundless, scarcely seeming to even breathe.

Sansa bent her head to begin reading again.

"Unto Jon Snow, King in the North, and his regent Sansa Stark of Winterfell, do I, Petyr Baelish, make this… confession?"

She paused, clearly taken aback by such a revelation.

"The following events were the result of and due to my own actions, with intent to commit treason and cause unrest in the Seven Kingdoms."

She blinked, lifting her gaze to the Hound and then Brienne. "One of you, go fetch him back, please."

Brienne was out the door almost before she finished the sentence, Podrick dashing after her.

" _Item the first: I mishandled the crown treasury until it was it was six million dragons in arrears with its lenders, thus weakening and destabilizing the position of the Seven Kingdoms versus the other nations of Westeros and Essos._

" _Item the second: I incited Lady Lysa Arryn to poison to death her husband, Jon Arryn, Lord of the Vale._

" _Item the third: I conspired to have the City Watch kill the men accompanying Lord Eddard Stark to King's Landing._

" _Item the fourth: I convinced King Joffrey Baratheon to execute Lord Eddard Stark instead of merely exile him, as had been promised._

" _Item the fifth: I conspired to poison King Joffrey Baratheon to death, to which Lady Sansa Stark was witness._

" _Item the sixth: I conspired to kill Ser Dontas Hollard, to which Lady Sansa Stark was witness._

" _Item the seventh: I pushed Lady Lysa Arryn out of the moon door to her death, to which Lady Sansa Stark was witness._

" _Item the eighth: I facilitated the bigamy of Lady Sansa Stark to Ramsey Bolton despite her marriage, as yet unannulled, to Lord Tyrion Lannister."_

Sansa paused to moisten her throat with a sip of ale, and everyone was as still and silent as statues while they waited for her to continue. Into that void strolled Arya, biting into an apple.

"What's everyone so quiet for?" she asked around a crunchy mouthful. "You all look as if you've seen ghosts."

"Littlefinger has confessed to…" Sansa began. She was swaying lightly in her chair, in deep shock, and Arya was glad her sister was already seated so if she fainted, she wouldn't have anywhere to drop.

"To what?"

"To _everything_ ," finished the Hound with grim satisfaction. "Littlefucker cooked his own goose."

Arya shot him a feral grin that he actually returned. Sansa cleared her throat with a cute little 'ahem!' and continued.

" _I freely and without duress admit to all of the above, and present myself to the King of the North and his regent. I hereby relinquish my titles of Lord of Harrenhal and Lord Protector of the Vale. I hereby relinquish the entirety of my wealth and possessions to the King of the North as compensation for my crimes. I request that Baelish Castle be given to a deserving knight and renamed, or else razed to the ground. My confession has been made this day, and witnessed by the undersigned._

" _Lord Petyr Baelish, Lord of Harrenhal, Lord Protector of the Vale."_

Sansa's voice was hoarse by the end, and she looked up at the Hound to find him just as astonished as she was. A clamor rose in the hall as the gathered lords and knights, and even the guards and servants, exclaimed in shock.

"I'll sign that!" said a high-pitched voice, and the crowd quieted and parted to reveal Lyanna Mormont. She stepped forward and reached for the quill resting at Sansa's elbow.

Numbly, Sansa pushed the scroll toward the girl, then the quill and ink pot. With a quick dab into the ink, Lyanna placed her signature below Littlefinger's in a precise and meticulous hand. When she was done, she straightened and gave Sansa a firm nod before stepping back.

"I'll sign as well," chimed in Robett Glover, and as he approached the table, the cry was taken up until every person in the hall was volunteering their mark.

Sansa thanked them all but, lacking the space for every peasant to scratch their X, kept it to only the lords and knights. Arya, too, ambled up to place her name by Sansa's in her appallingly messy script. In the end, even the Hound slashed _Lord Sandor Clegane of Clegane Hall, Westerlands_ over the bottom of the scroll in a dashing hand.

"Where's that big bitch with Littlefucker?" he grumbled when it was done. Every one was still milling about in shock, but a frisson of anticipation was building for when Baelish would be presented to account for his crimes.

That was when Podrick dashed into the hall, breathing hard. "My lady!" he fair shouted. "You must come!"

Sansa launched to her feet. "What has happened?"

"He's dead, my lady! Lord Baelish is dead!"


	7. Chapter 7

Jon Snow hammered away at the bulwark that was Dany's resistance day after day. It should have annoyed her to the point of having the dragons roast him alive, but instead, she found herself softening toward him. She watched carefully for the cracks she knew all men to have, searching for some hint of his fatal flaw.

Would he reveal greed, a lust for power or gold? Would those dark eyes of his trail with lascivious intent over her, thinking to use her for his own pleasure? Once she identified which he wanted, she could use it against him, to manipulate him with it until he was her helpless vassal, like all the rest.

Except… he did not seem to have a fatal flaw, he alone of all men, unless it was a crippling sense of honor. Never had she met a man so bound and determined to be _honest_ , and _good_ , and _fair_. It was unnerving. He seemed uncomfortable with deference, and every time Ser Davos tried to sing his praises, he'd silence the man with an uneasy look.

Dany was starting to become afraid of him, almost, because if they could not reach an accord… if she would have to count him as enemy instead of ally, in the end… she'd have to crush him like all her enemies, and she was coming to think she would not be able to do it. She imagined the wounded expression in his eyes, the betrayal and sadness, and wanted to throw something across the room in frustration.

He was supposed to be an unwashed barbarian, so how was he making her empathize with him so strongly? She, of all women. It was unsupportable.

She sighed when she spied him approaching, as he had begun doing every day at this time. She usually spent it taking the fresh air and watching her dragons fly about, enjoying their exhilaration in their strength and freedom, but she'd come to dread it because she knew she was in for an hour-long entreaty to bind her forces with his and fight the coming blight together.

An hour later, after Dany's eyes had glazed over and she was considering pitching herself into the Blackwater to escape, he was still yammering on about it. She wondered if he thought he could convince her through sheer determination. It might even be working; exhaustion with the topic was pushing her to agree to anything, just to get him to _be quiet_.

"…the idea of an army of the dead is no more fantastical than the existence of dragons after so many years, and yet—"

He gestured to the cloudless sky above, to where Viserion and Rhaegal and Drogon gleefully swooped and shrieked overhead.

"I might not have believed in the dragons, were I not seeing them with my own eyes. So I understand your trouble. And I know it would be foolish for you to simply trust me. You don't know me. That would be foolish. I had hoped, perhaps, that you would believe the word of your Hand, if not mine."

He looked truly sad about it, and Dany felt that tug in her chest again, feeling pulled once more between liking him and thinking him the stupidest, most naive man she'd ever met.

"But aside from your seeing with your own eyes, there's nothing else I can do. Perhaps just keep trying to make you trust and believe me."

 _His earnestness might well be the death of me,_ Dany mused, and mean it literally. He was an idealist, almost to the point of folly. It was entirely possible— perhaps even probable— that it would get them all killed, and for what?

She should feel contempt for his stubborn adherence to his principles, except she couldn't. She _couldn_ _'t_. How could she? She was an idealist, herself, just one who'd seen and experienced so much that she could not longer afford to adhere to principles to the exclusion of everything else. For a moment, she envied him, and wished she'd never lost those days when she saw living and dying for her values as a worthwhile exchange.

He was a truly good man, she decided, and good men deserved the benefit of the doubt.

…with at least a _touch_ of proof. And she would like some proof of his bravery, his sword-skill, his leadership, and all the other things Ser Davos had claimed. So far, she'd seen nothing but his walking into the maw of the enemy in blind faith, and begging her to believe in the impossible, hardly things to build a reliable alliance upon.

"But if I _could_ see the… White Walkers, you called them?— then I might feel differently."

He stared at her. "If there were enough time, I would take you over the wall. To Hardhome, even. They took it over in just minutes. They can't cross moving water, and thank the gods for it, because we'd never have escaped with our lives." He expelled a breath of frustration. "But it would take months overland. Weeks, over sea. Both equally dangerous."

"Land?" Dany said with a laugh. "Sea?"

"How else to get there?" He tilted his head at her, looking much like a slightly confused puppy. It was the eyes, she decided. Big, guileless, dark eyes. After what he was supposed to have been through, _how_ could he be so unspoiled?

Dany smiled at him, and then wider still when Drogon, drawn by a thought, landed behind her with a scream and an earth-shaking thud, crumbling most of a rampart into the Blackwater below.

Snow stared past her at the immense black dragon, then back at her. "You don't mean…"

She nodded.

He visibly swallowed, his gaze roaming over the craggy scales and sword-long teeth, the flame-lit eyes and claws like daggers. Then, as she watched in fascination, the apprehension drained from his face, replaced by determination, and his shoulders went back. She was, she realized, watching courage in its very manifestation.

"Yes," said Snow, and then surprised Dany by shooting her a grin. "When do you want to leave?"

The next morning, Dany and Jon Snow departed with the dawn. Tyrion and Davos both had spent the prior evening talking themselves hoarse, trying everything they could think of to dissuade their respective royalty from their journey, but their protests fell on deaf ears. Dany wouldn't risk anything without visible proof, and Snow was willing to risk everything to provide it.

Along with warm woolens and furs for Dany, at Snow's insistence, they took the best map to be found, so he would have some way of navigating them to their destinations. They would be stopping at Greywater Watch the first day, Winterfell the second, and arriving at Hardhome the third. He expected they'd pass that third night at Castle Black before returning the same way: Winterfell, then Greywater Watch, then Dragonstone.

They met outside just as the first pale fingers of dawn reached over the horizon. When Longclaw was returned to him, he accepted his sword with a visible sigh of relief.

"No weapon for you, Your Grace?" he asked Dany as he buckled it on.

"My dragons are my weapons," she told him as Drogon dropped to the ground in the near distance.

His eyes sharpened. "I see. But I would feel better if you had a blade on you, as well. In case you get separated from me, or the dra— Drogon is occupied and can't protect you."

He was genuinely concerned for her. _Lovely boy,_ she thought, and nodded to one of her bloodriders, who immediately relinquished his own dagger to her. She thrust it through her belt and turned back to Snow, brow arched, waiting for his approval.

He gave it with a nod and a faint smile. "We should get going. I want to make it to Greywater Watch before night falls."

 _My love,_ she cooed to Drogon, _will you take another upon your back? It would help me greatly. You will hardly feel the weight._

Drogon snorted, the idea amusing him, and a gout of flame scorched the earth for a hundred feet in what passed for a dragon's laughter as he touched down. When they reached him, he didn't fuss at all when, after she had settled herself into her customary position on his neck, Snow grasped the dragon's spikes and hauled himself into position behind her.

She had not realized, when she proposed their riding together, that they would be so closely pressed together. In spite of all their thick garments, the sensation of having a man— a strong, young, healthy man— pressed all along her body both startled and saddened her, for it reminded her of when she'd ride with Drogo the same way.

"We return in a week," she called to where Tyrion, Davos, and Missandei stood watching, all with identical frowns of concern.

" _Valahd,"_ she said, and with a screech the dragon began to run. Snow's arms tightened around her convulsively as they jostled and swayed.

"Not much like a horse," he muttered. She could feel the warmth of his breath on her cheek. An unwelcome little spark flamed to life in her belly.

 _No, no, no, no, no,_ she thought with a touch of panic. _No._

Satisfied they were going fast enough, Drogon gave a flap of mighty wings, and they were aloft.

The first few minutes were always the most breathtaking ones, and Snow spent those minutes doing nothing but panting in her ear, his heart thundering against her back, neither of which exactly helped her douse that treacherous spark.

Finally, and to her great relief, he calmed, loosening his grip on her waist, and became accustomed enough to the experience to give her some directions.

"Head toward that peninsula there, Your Grace," he said, pointing to the northeast. "When you see a narrow bay, follow it to its delta, and then turn north, over the mountains."

Dany nodded, mentally nudged Drogon in the direction she wished, and tried to relax, but it was impossible the way Snow was gasping and humming every time he saw something new. She could not blame him: flying was spectacular, and she was actually glad to have been able to give him the experience. She was even happy to have company for this, her first flight over the lands she would one day rule as rightful queen.

They did not speak much, that day. He would point out various places he thought he recognized, and once asked her if she were cold when they had to climb higher to pass over a rocky range of mountains. Not waiting for her response, he pulled the edges of his cloak around her, holding it closed around them with the edges grasped in his hands, locked around her waist.

The scent and heat of him rose up to surround Dany, and she took a shuddery breath. Had she thought him an unwashed barbarian? Nothing could be farther from the truth; he smelled of soap and salt-water, and while his manners might be thought by some a bit rough and unpracticed, his consideration was nearly unparalleled in her experience.

This was going to be… difficult.

She was very relieved once they left the mountains behind and began to traverse a wide bay, Snow indicating that they were nearing their destination.

"Will they welcome us?" she asked, not turning her head to look back at him, since the one time she'd done it had resulting in her almost mashing her face into his and they'd both jerked away, uncomfortable. To his credit, not once had Dany felt the pressure of anything untoward, like an erection, against her bottom. That she could not decide if she were relieved or not made her very unhappy with herself.

"They will," he affirmed. "Howland Reed is— was— my father's closest friend, after Robert Baratheon. I think you'll like Greywater Watch. It's… well, it's a moving island, I suppose you could say. I've only been once, but it was very peculiar and interesting."

"A moving island?" This time she did look over her shoulder, only to find him with a little smile on his lips. She turned back to face forward again.

"You'll see," was all he replied, vexing her, but would not say more.

They turned inland, going west over a vast swampland. The humidity warmed the air even at their altitude, and Snow let his cloak fall back. Wind streamed over Dany's limbs, very refreshing, and she coaxed Drogon to descend a bit. It took a bit of back-and-forth to actually locate the place, since it never quite remained in the same area.

"Best to put down a bit away. Let's not scare everyone with a dragon," he recommended, and Drogon made land about a mile away.

"You don't mind the walk?" he asked.

"I am not some delicate aristocrat who has never exerted herself in her life," Dany sniffed. "I've walked and ridden thousands of leagues across Essos."

"So you have, so you have," he replied mildly, not smiling this time, but there was a glint in his eye that said she had amused him. Something about him that made her feel… young. Temperamental. She had the strongest urge to _flounce_ , leaving him there, and quickly stifled it as she wondered at herself.

She instructed Drogon to go find some dinner and try to stay out-of-sight, perhaps returning to the mountains for a nice crag to hide behind, and to return in the morning. He left with alacrity, off to terrorize the local cattle population, no doubt.

Their walk was brisk despite the sucking mud of the swamp, and soon they arrived, just as dusk was starting to fall. This time, she was the one gasping, for as more and more lights went on in the windows, the… castle?… began to glow, its reflection in the surrounding water doubling the sparkling effect until it appeared to be filled with stars.

"I suggest we not reveal your identity to anyone, Your Grace," he said as they stepped to the tiny dock where a few coracles were tied.

"Who shall I be, then?" she asked after he'd helped her into the bottom of one coracle, then taken the seat behind her and begun paddling them across the expanse of water to the portcullis that appeared to be its main entrance.

"Pick a name for yourself, and keep your hood up," he recommended. "We'll try to keep you a secret until we're safely with Howland Reed."

It seemed a bit haphazard to her, but when she said so, he just shrugged.

"Sometimes life makes you have to make do without preparation," was all he said. Irritation flashed again.

Soon they were extracting themselves from the coracle on the ledge before the portcullis.

"Your business?" asked a guard, eyeing them with curiosity.

"To see Lord Howland Reed."

"And you are?"

"Jon Snow, King in the North, and—" here he paused, glancing down at her. She stared back up, her hood drawn so close around her face that only the tip of her nose was visible. "—friend," he finished lamely. She barely managed to keep from rolling her eyes.

The guard's eyes, however, rounded with shock. "I'll… could you… one moment, please."

He turned back to the portcullis and whispered something to the guard just inside. That man dashed off. Then they were all left waiting. Dany amused herself by looking around some more. The sensation of moving with the current was odd but pleasant, and not for the first time she was happy she did not suffer an illness of the sea.

The portcullis was raised with a groan of gears, and a man came to meet them, hand outstretched in welcome.

"Lord Reed," Snow said, taking his hand for a firm shake.

"Your Grace," Lord Reed said. "Glad I am of your arrival. I've had news from Winterfell, and would appreciate your counsel."

"You'll have it."

Lord Reed then turned to Dany. "Welcome, my lady."

"I am Mhysa," she said, offering her hand as well, instead of a curtsy as she probably should have done, but she had not bent to anyone in years and was not going to start now.

"Mhysa of…?"

"Just Mhysa."

"Ah." Lord Reed's eyes flickered with an odd light, just for a moment, and then he smiled. "Well, please come in. I've ordered a feast—"

"No feast, please, Lord Reed," Snow said, smiling to soften the interruption. "I'd prefer this visit to be as quiet as possible."

"Of course," said their host, and beckoned a servant forward. "No feast," he said, "just supper in the family hall, and a room—"

Snow coughed. "Two rooms," he said. "Please."

Lord Reed studied them briefly before turning back to the servant. " _Two_ rooms prepared."

"We shall only stay the one night, though also again in a few days, upon our return."

Once in the family hall, Snow unfastened his heavy cloak with a sigh, dropping it to a chair. Dany kept hers on, looking around the room. Its walls were a framework of reeds and flexible wood, upon which were stretched sheets of what appeared to be parchment, but couldn't possibly be— there was too much of it, it would have taken endless flocks of sheep to produce that much.

"It's paper," said Lord Reed, noticing her scrutiny. "Reeds are pounded into a pulp, mixed with water, then spread thin to dry. We use it in place of parchment, to write upon, too."

Dany nodded and made a note of it for possible future use.

"To what do I owe your visit, Your Grace?" asked Lord Reed.

"I have an opportunity to make an important alliance," Snow began slowly, picking his words with care. "But I must produce evidence of the Night King and his White Walkers before the leader of this people will believe that they are a true threat."

"You search for proof of that here?" Lord Reed nodded to the servants appearing in the door with trays of food. Once they were deposited on the table, and the servants dismissed, he shut the door behind them and motioned for Dany and Snow to take seats and begin.

"Can you keep a secret?" Snow asked him, and for a moment, Lord Reed's face went through a series of expressions: humor, sadness, grief.

"Yes, Your Grace," he said quietly. "I can keep a secret."


	8. Chapter 8

Podrick leaned in the doorway of the great hall as he panted, "My la- my _other_ lady and I went to get him but he was locked in his chamber and wouldn't come out. Wouldn't even answer. So we broke the door down, and— my lady, just come look!"

Thus commenced a stampede of aristocrats, major and minor, from the hall to the guest tower on the other side of the courtyard. Up the winding staircase they went, lurching to a stop in the doorway of a nicely-appointed chamber, wherein they found Brienne standing between a table and the bed, on which Petyr Baelish lay with a thick pool of vomit surrounding his head. His skin was a mottled gray, and his open eyes were brightly red, looking as if tears of blood would streak down his cheeks at any moment. Upon the table rested an amethyst necklace with two stones missing, and a slip of parchment.

"My lady," Brienne said grimly, and handed the paper slip to Sansa.

Arya elbowed her way through the crowd to stand with them, watching as her sister scanned the note.

"It says that he does not want to face the headsman in a public execution," Sansa replied in a harsh whisper. "That he's as much a coward as he is a liar and, as always, wants to take the easy way out. That he used the same poison from my necklace, the poison that he used to kill Joffrey, for himself and that I should take comfort from knowing it was very painful and he suffered dreadfully."

She looked at Littlefinger's corpse and shuddered once, then twice, her knees slowly bending, and then the Hound was lifting her into his arms.

"It's fine, little bird," he murmured, his head bent tenderly to hers, and then tossed, "Taking her to our— _her_ — chamber," at them while he carried her out.

"You are all witnesses to this suicide," announced Brienne. "Expect to swear to it before the King in the North upon his return."

The assembly noisily gave assent as she and Podrick ushered them from the room. Brienne soon returned, shutting the door behind her, and joined Arya in staring down at Littlefinger.

"This stinks," said the sworn shield.

"Aye," agreed Arya. "Puke always does."

"No," Brienne corrected. "The situation stinks." She wrinkled her nose. "Though the puke stinks, too."

She reached out a big hand and rolled Littlefinger to his side, revealing a long bloody stripe down his back and all along the bedding beneath. His body moved oddly, as if not all the pieces were connected properly.

"Could be he shat himself," Arya said helpfully. "It happens with poison." She coughed. "Or so I hear."

Brienne quirked a platinum brow and used her other hand to point to and then peel apart the edges of a neatly-done slit in the back of his surcote.

Arya peered closer. "Huh," she said. "Look at that. How much do you think it hurt?"

"Quite a lot." Brienne stared at her in disbelief. "His spine has been cut out. You're very relaxed about it."

Arya smirked at her. "Did you expect me to gnash my teeth and rend my garments? I'm only sorry it didn't hurt _more_."

Brienne's steely gaze did not waver, even as she rolled the body back down and tugged a blanket over it.

"You can't think it was me!" protested Arya. "I've been in the hall with everyone else for the past ten minutes. How long have _you_ been here?"

"The past five," conceded Brienne. "We met a servant who told us Littlefinger was seen headed for the crypts so we searched there before coming here."

"So unless I can be in two places at the same time…" Arya gave a negligent shrug. "Does it really matter? His death is a favor to the entirety of Westeros. None of this would have happened without his scheming. My parents and brothers would still be alive. Sansa would not have suffered so. None of us would have. I'm sure you have lost people, as well, in all the conflicts that occurred because of him."

Brienne just gazed at her wordlessly, her throat working in a rough swallow, and Arya knew she was thinking of a dear one, gone from her forever.

"So I'm for the carpenter's," Arya concluded. "Littlefinger will have the cheapest, fastest-built coffin possible, and then we'll burn him." She slanted a contemptuous glance down at the shrouded corpse. "He doesn't deserve a burial. The space taken up would be wasted on him. He'll have no mourners come to visit, after all."

She left Brienne there, passing the maester on the stairs as he puffed and tripped over his robe-hems in his haste. Once outside, she unsheathed Needle and waved it through the various pronation parries before leaping forward _en fleche_ , then feinting back and striking a riposte against an imaginary opponent.

She was feeling quite cheerful, and smiled into the smithy at Gendry as she passed by.

Littlefinger's death had Arya still feeling sprightly and buoyant the next day. Intending a lively spar with the Hound, instead she ended up thrashing him soundly since he was absolutely knackered and paying a tenth of the attention he ought to have, preferring to stare at Sansa on the covered walk as she smiled and simpered at him. Sansa, too, had dark circles under her eyes, and her face was wan, but she looked radiant.

 _They must have been at it all night,_ Arya thought with disgust, and gave him a good walloping in retaliation for making her have to think about it. He'd have some interestingly-placed bruises to show Sansa that night, for sure.

Arya headed for then kitchen, intent on getting a bowl of hot water for washing, when she was waylaid by her sister's sworn shield.

"A word, if you please, my lady," said Brienne, hands clasped behind her back and eyes trained on the ground. She was the picture of subservience, except there was something to the set of her broad shoulders that spoke of indignation and righteousness. "In private?"

"Er. Of course. After you."

Brienne led the way toward a staircase set in the inside of the bailey wall and gestured to it. Arya stifled a sigh and joined her in ascending toward the parapet. Once there, they strolled atop the outer perimeter of Winterfell's walls, gazing at the open countryside and the dark horizon of the Wolfswood in the distance. They did not speak. Arya wondered if Brienne was purposefully being quiet as a way of goading her to fill the silence with revealing words. The sworn shield would be in for a sad disappointment, were that the case, because Arya was very good at keeping her mouth shut. Very good indeed.

And thus they walked the entirety of the parapet around the keep without saying a word. When they arrived at the point from which they had departed, Arya decided to end whatever farce this might be.

"Lady Brienne, I need to wash and then sharped Needle and Bodkin in time for supper—"

"Bodkin?"

"My new dagger. That Gendry made for me." Arya gave the knife a fond pat. She'd thought him a talented blacksmith before, but now his work was pure artistry. The dagger was perfection in her hand, such that she was considering having Gendry make her an exact copy of Needle out of Valyrian steel to match it. "I know it's silly, but I wanted it to be a sewing term. To match Needle. And 'bodkin' originally meant 'dagger' before the name became used as it is now, and—"

"It's a fine name," Brienne interrupted, but gently, and offered a smile. "I wonder, sometimes, if I should rename Oathkeeper, since my oath to your mother has indeed been kept." She looked down at her sword and wrapped her hand around its hilt. "I wonder, too, if I should have it reforged, or the lions removed, at least. It seems in poor taste to wield it while decorated with the symbol of the family that has caused the Starks so much strife. More than that, even, I wonder if I should give it to your brother, His Grace the king. Forged from Ice as it was, it should be in the hands of a Stark, not a Tarth."

"Sansa tells me Jon has Longclaw. It's Valyrian as well." Arya said. "Though perhaps if you give him Oathkeeper, he'll trade Longclaw for it."

They exchanged a small smile, knowing that would never happen.

"Or perhaps…" Brienne began hesitantly. "Perhaps you should have it, since you fight as well."

Immediately, she began removing the sword belt, clearly meaning to hand it over that very minute.

"I'd almost think you hated the sword, the way you're consumed with giving it away," Arya joked, her hand on Brienne's halting the unbuckling. "You have used it well and with honor in the name of our family. You should continue to use it, at least until you leave our service."

She watched as Brienne refastened it around her waist. "Lady Brienne, what is it you want to talk to me about? I know you weren't just looking for company while walking around."

Brienne's hands stilled while threading the strap through the buckle. Then she resumed her actions. After giving it one last tug, she looked up at Arya.

"I have been much bothered by the circumstances of Littlefinger's death."

"Oh?"

The sworn shield's lovely eyes were piercing as they studied Arya's face, searching for… something.

"You and I both know it was not the simple self-poisoning it appeared."

"It does not appear so, no," Arya agreed easily.

"I've never seen someone get their spine cut out like that," Brienne continued. "Cut in half, beheaded, yes, but just the spine? And so neatly, too— with almost surgical precision." Her gaze flickered over Arya again, settling on Bodkin's hilt jutting from her belt. "The blade used would have had to be almost… unnaturally sharp."

"Is that right?"

"Yes, that's right." Brienne was clearly becoming annoyed at Arya's nonchalance. "Who could do such a thing, I asked myself. Moreover, who could do it and remain undetected?"

"Who, indeed?" murmured Arya.

"I concluded that you were the only person here with a blade sharp enough, and the ability and desire to do it."

"That seems about right," Arya agreed. "Except I was in full view of various people during the time it must have occurred. It's a solid alibi, I feel."

"Solid, yes." Brienne eyed her. "Littlefinger was observed crossing the courtyard to the guest tower. Soon— too soon— after that, you were seen in the kitchens, where the cook threw a pot at you for stealing an apple meant for stewing."

"It was worth it," Arya replied, rubbing her head where the pot had struck her. "Excellent apple."

Brienne squinted at her. "Thereafter, you were seen walking to and entering the hall, after which you were in the company of dozens of people. Between his entering his room and your presence in the kitchen, there was not enough time for you to perform such exacting and precise work. You would have had to been in two places at the same time. Clearly, this was impossible."

"Clearly," Arya agreed. "It would seem I am innocent, then."

"You might not be able to be in two places at once," Brienne said, watching her closely, "but Littlefinger could have been."

They stared at each other for a long, tense moment.

"Is that right?" Arya murmured. "How talented of him."

"I asked the maester if he knew of any trainings or magics that could make a person appear to be in two places at once," she continued. "We scoured his books until we found a mention of a group based in Braavos called the Faceless Men. Quite a descriptive mention, as it turns out."

 _Not as secret as Jaqen thought they were, if the Winterfell maester has a book about them,_ Arya thought. Aloud, she only repeated, "Oh?"

"Yes. They are a group of assassins, apparently, with a peculiar sense of honor and the ability to wear the faces of those previously killed by their kind."

"Are you saying that Petyr Baelish traveled to Braavos to join a secret group of assassins? He had a finger in every pie, but even he could not reach a pie on another continent."

"No, I'm saying that _you_ did. And I'm asking what _you_ say to that. My lady." Brienne tacked on the honorific at the last moment.

"This book… it was written by a grand maester, I assume?" asked Arya. "Some sort of authority with first-hand experience of assassin groups, or organizations in Braavos? And of course, there were many other books confirming this mention of these Faceless Men…"

"No," said Brienne coldly. "It was written by an apprentice as his thesis to prove his readiness to graduate. Unsuccessful, it turns out, since he drew his conclusions from hearsay gathered from others. It was the only book in the maester's collection that had any mention of the Faceless Men at all."

"So you have nothing more than a brief description, and a gut feeling."

Brienne gave her a tight nod.

"Then," Arya said slowly, "unless you have a way of proving that _I_ was Baelish at the same time that _Baelish_ was Baelish, I would say that you have nothing more than an outlandish suspicion that would probably upset my sister if you were to present it to her. I'd also say that, if prosecuted, not only is the judge my half-brother who I flatter myself to say is quite fond of me, but I'd demand trial by combat. And while you may be one of the two finest fighters in Westeros…"

Arya trailed her fingers along Needle's hilt in imitation to how the other woman was always caressing her own blade.

"I was not trained to fight in Westeros. You've never fought someone like me, and it's entirely possible you'd end up dead." She shrugged. "And for what? To reveal that a man universally distrusted and despised was killed by another's hand, instead of his own? The important thing is that he's dead."

"Executed without a trial," Brienne corrected. "That's not justice."

"We are at _war_ ," Arya snapped, her patience fraying. "In war, every fighter becomes both judge and headsman. In war, there's no time or resources for the pretense of justice. How can you be this naive? You've killed hundreds, haven't you? Did all of your victims receive trials before you executed them? Did _any_ of them?"

Brienne flinched back at her vehemence.

"We are at war," she repeated, more calmly. "On two fronts, no less: one against Cersei, and one against the undead. Thousands have died already. Jon's desperately trying to convince some inbred tart to help us combat demons, Sansa's struggling to keep the North together in his absence. The gods only know where Bran is, if he's even still alive. Robb's dead. Rickon's dead. Father and Mother are dead. Three of the direwolves are dead, and Nymeria is too feral to stay with me now. We've lost everything but each other."

Brienne opened her mouth to reply, but Arya forged ahead.

"If you think I will risk what remains of my family to let loose ends flap in the breeze, just waiting for proven traitors to conspire against us once again, you're not only naive, you're stupid. You've lived an easy life, where you've never lost anyone to lies and trickery and cruelty."

"You're wrong," the sworn shield whispered. "I lost Re—"

"I know you love someone," Arya pressed on doggedly, "and I even think I know who it is."

Brienne's face went gray and blotchy.

"Tell me you wouldn't kill to protect him. That you haven't already. Tell me you wouldn't violate your precious justice to avenge his death."

"Yes, I already have," Brienne snapped. "And I did lose someone, in fact, and… you're right. I punished his murderer, ended his life, and I told myself it was right at the time, but… when I did it, I wasn't thinking of justice. I was thinking of how he had to pay. And yes, I love someone, and if he is murdered, I won't rest until his killer is made to pay."

She raked her hands through her pale curls. "This war… everything that has come to pass in the last years… there's such evil, such cruelty. No one follows any rules. No one strives for what they know is right. I have to at least try, don't you see? I can't give in to the chaos. If I do, nothing will mean anything anymore. Why fight, if there's nothing good to fight _for_? If all that's left in Westeros is anarchy and mayhem, maybe we're all better off dead, or as wights."

Arya was feeling distinctly over her head. She was not a very complicated girl, when all was boiled down, and this level of soul-searching and philosophy had rendered her uncomfortable and confused. Also, Brienne looked about to cry, and Arya was not prepared to cope with such a thing. The very idea filled her with horror.

She lifted a hand and gave one of Brienne's slumped shoulders what she hoped was a comforting pat or three. "You're… thinking too much into the whys and wherefores," she said. "Sometimes things don't have reasons or meanings. Sometimes you just have to accept, and act, and sort everything afterward. I think this is one of those times. Just fight, do your best, survive, and figure out what you think and who you are when it's all over."

Brienne turned away. The motion of her hands suggested she was scrubbing at her eyes. "Yes," she agreed in a clogged-sounding voice. "I'll do just that."

"Good!" Arya injected a hopefully-adequate amount of heartiness into it. "Now, if I'm right, the carpenter has just finished Littlefinger's coffin. Let's go stick him in it and chuck him into a nice tall bonfire. Once he's nothing but smoke and ash, it will all be over."


	9. Chapter 9

Jon- she'd begun to think of him as his first name, as if they were friends instead of tensely neutral acquaintances, to her chagrin— met Dany's eyes and gave a tiny nod.

She put her hand to the laces of her cloak and loosened them, letting the hood fall back and the edges part. Her hair was revealed in all its damning glory, and she expected some sort of reaction of amazement from Lord Reed, but he just smiled and nodded.

"Ah," was all he said.

Dany was disappointed; she'd expected at least some little bit of shock, but this man was behaving as if he'd already known it was her.

"What can I do to help you?" he asked.

"Nothing besides host us tonight and again later in the week," said Jon. He was looking at the laden table with yearning and Dany realized that both men must be hungry but would not sit until she did. She took a chair and the men quickly seated themselves and began to fill plates.

To her surprise, Jon handed her his plate when it had an array of choice tidbits on it, and then began piling more of the same onto a second. She stared down at the food, confused.

"It is considered courteous for a man to present a woman with food before taking it himself," Lord Reed said, drawing her attention across the table. "It's a sign of respect."

She blinked and looked at Jon, who flushed and busied himself with cutting into a roasted fish.

"Thank you," she murmured, to both of them, and began to eat.

"I'm glad to host you. There is nothing more I can do?"

"Nothing. But I thank you." Jon poured something from a pitcher into a goblet and handed that, too, to Dany. This time, the flush went up to his ears. "You said you had news of Winterfell and needed some counsel?"

Lord Reed swallowed his bite and nodded. "I had a raven yesterday from your lady sister."

Jon sat up, alert. "All is well?"

"Depends on how one views it," answered Lord Reed. "It seems the Freys are… gone."

"Gone?"

"Poisoned."

"All of them?"

"Every single man. The women and children were spared."

"Any word about who was responsible?"

"Word has been coming in, but slowly. Most I've heard was something about winter coming for House Frey."

Jon's hands stilled from where they were buttering a slab of bread. "A Stark loyalist."

"So it would seem. And now that the Twins are devoid of a lord, Lady Sansa wants House Reed to take it."

Jon stared at him, deep in thought, before saying, "An excellent addition to the North. But contentious— Cersei will fight like a demon to keep from losing it, on principle more than for any great love of it."

"House Reed stands ready to do your pleasure, Your Grace."

"I'll let you know my thoughts in the morning," said Jon. "Can someone wake us before dawn? We must be away very early."

Lord Reed agreed, and the rest of the meal passed in companionable silence. He showed them to their rooms himself. They were narrow chambers, simply furnished, and right next to each other. Dany imagined the paper walls did little to disguise the sounds of loving when the occupants were of a mind to enjoy each other.

Just before Lord Reed left them, Jon said, "I'm trying to be sorry that a hundred men were killed to avenge my family. But I can't. They were a treacherous lot. What they did to Robb, and Lady Stark, and Greywind… the rest of the men… I can't be sorry that people like that, who would violate guest right and kill unarmed people… women… that they're all dead."

He sighed, seeming very disappointed in himself. "I'm glad I no longer have to worry about guarding my back against them."

"Don't be hard on yourself, Your Grace," said Lord Reed. "It's not a sin to be glad you have one fewer enemy. Their blood isn't on your hands, even if it were done in your name."

Once he was gone, Jon turned to Dany and said, "If you hear anything or become worried in the night, just call for me. I'll…" he stopped, surveying the odd papery walls, and then darting her a quicksilver smile. "I'll burst through the wall."

The funny thing was, she knew he would do exactly that. The idea made her smile back. "I'll hold you to that."

He dug out her fresh clothes from their shared pack, handing them over, and went to his own chamber.

The door was flat to the wall and slid closed on a track, a hempen cord looping around a knob to secure it. Dany wasted no time in shedding her clothing and slipping between the cool, damp-feeling sheets. After shivering sleeplessly for a while, despite being very tired, she thought of how the chill might be dispelled by sharing the body heat of another.

And how Jon was just feet away, on the other side of a paper wall.

Dany left the bed to drape her cloak over the coverlet, then pulled her under-tunic back over her nude body. Soon the covers warmed and she drowsed easily.

 _Much better,_ she thought, and hoped Drogon had found himself a tasty little herd of sheep for his own supper, and a cozy cave to sleep in.

The next morning, Dany was woken by a light rap on her door. She rose, dressed in fresh clothing, and left her chamber just as Jon stepped from his. She offered a nod of greeting and turned to walk down the hall toward where they'd eaten the previous night, but his light touch on her arm stopped her.

"I was hoping—" he began. "I wished to ask your opinion. Of the best choice regarding the Twins. Should I have House Reed take it, thus risking an even fiercer battle with Cersei over it, or leave it?"

Dany had spent some time pondering it, herself. "You'd be fighting Cersei either way. This would either present yet another front to which she would have to send troops, thus spreading her forces thinner and increasing our chances of success against her, or give you another fortress from which to guard the north, as well as make inroads into her realm. However, as claimant to the very same realm, taking it would also make inroads against _me_ , and that I cannot recommend."

He directed all his considerable focus at her. Dany tried not to fidget under the force of all that attention.

"What if—" he began. "What if we took it now, to keep it from Cersei and have a key fortress in a prime location, and then after she's defeated, I returned it to you?"

She quirked a brow. "You would do that?"

He shrugged. "Greywater Watch has always been our most southernmost castle," he said, "and besides, the Twins is where Robb and Lady Stark were killed. It's not a place I want to have to think about often. If it weren't strategically important, I'd tell Lord Reed to stay comfortably at home and let it crumble to ruins."

Dany nodded. "Then I agree. Send House Reed to take it, and once Cersei is defeated and I sit on the Iron Throne once more, I shall have it back."

His face lit up in one of his brief smiles that were rather starting to dazzle her, and then he reached out and pulled her hood up over her head.

"Ah, yes," she murmured, helping him arrange it around her face just so. They were only inches apart, their faces close, and a slow burn started low in her belly. She kept her gaze downward so he could not see anything in her eyes, and stepped back. "My thanks."

They broke their fast with Lord Reed, during which Jon explained his wishes regarding the Twins. Lord Reed agreed that the plan, not only to take the castle but to hand it back to Dany when it was all over, was a wise one. After they ate, he escorted them down to the portcullis where a small barge awaited them, the bargeman ready with his pole to conduct them to the shore.

Dany noticed they were nowhere near where they'd been upon arriving the night prior, and was disoriented and wondering until she remembered how Greywater Watch was constantly on the move. The still-a-child part of her was delighted by the fey nature of the place, while the now-an-adult part frowned at the logistics challenge it presented.

They set off through the swamp in search of a clearing where Drogon could land. Upon finding a suitable place, he dropped to the ground before them with his customary _thud_ and gave his mother a screech of welcome.

"Good morning, my love," she cooed to him. "Is your belly full? Are you rested?"

He puffed a series of smoke rings in response, seeming quite happy.

"Ah, plenty of sheep, then," she laughed, then laughed again at Jon's expression. "He likes sheep the best."

"I'm… glad he found some, then," was his response, and she laughed a third time. It was fun to surprise him, especially with the dragons.

She began to climb Drogon's spikes, and a curious thing happened then: he twisted his massive neck and swung his thorny head until he was facing Jon, close enough that the breath huffing out his saucer-sized nostrils blew Jon's hair back.

Jon stood there, still as a statue, eyes huge. Drogon stared at him, eyes piercing, and for the first time, Dany could not read him. She'd never seen him do this with anyone but her before.

 _Drogon?_ She thought. _What is wrong? Does he raise your suspicions?_

She trusted the dragons' instincts more than her own. If Drogon thought Jon capable of doing her some wrong— if Jon was so skilled a liar that he'd been able to fool even her keen sense of duplicity— she would believe her dragon over her own perceptions.

Thus she was shocked when, for the first time, Drogon spoke back to her. It was only one word, but it was speech, actual speech.

And it was terrifying.

 _Ours,_ he hissed into her mind. _Ours._

And then he released Jon from the stare-down, lunging forward a nip up a turtle that had picked the worst possible time to try crossing the swamp. As the poor thing's shell crunched in Drogon's teeth, Dany fought to breathe. She turned incredulous eyes to Jon, who slowly looked from the dragon to her, his own face equally perplexed.

"Do you have dragon blood in you?" she demanded. "He would only behave so with someone sharing his blood."

"I… don't think so…?" He swallowed. "Definitely not on my father's side. I don't know who my mother was. I had been sure she was a common. Could a common have… dragon blood?"

"Do you burn?"

He frowned. "Do I _burn_?"

She made an impatient noise. "Do you scald in hot water? If you touch a flame, does it hurt?"

"Yes, of course," he began, but then stopped. "At least, I think I do. I'm sure I did before…"

She narrowed her eyes at him, commanding without words that he finish his sentence.

"Before I died," he said with reluctance.

"You _died_?"

"Just the once."

They stared at each other for tense seconds that felt like an hour.

Jon Snow was a man who asked for a lot of trust from a person; first, that undead ice monsters were about to invade the Seven Kingdoms and slay them all, and then that he had come back to life. How could she find proof of any of this, at least enough to justify an alliance with the North? She was trying, but he certainly wasn't making it easy.

"We don't have time for this," Dany said at last. "At least, not while standing here. Let's begin today's journey. You can tell me as we ride."

Jon clambered onto Drogon's back, sliding his legs behind hers and draping his arms around her waist. Again, just as yesterday, Dany felt a frisson of awareness along everywhere he touched. There was something unnervingly compelling about him, even if he were addled in the head. His passion stirred her, for it had been a long time since she had met someone so wholeheartedly devoted, not to himself, or to wealth, or power, or even to drink or whoring, but to his people, and his duties to them.

But she had to know more. She had to be able to trust him, if she were to delay her conquest of his land and join him on his mad quest to eliminate an army of frost wights. How could she leave her northernmost kingdom in the hands of a lunatic? Until she had the proof she needed, she had to remain neutral. Which was damned hard, considering how warm he was against her, and how strong his arms felt around her, and how intensely his eyes could pierce her when he spoke of his convictions.

Dany closed her eyes, and prayed to whichever gods might be listening, that day, for fortitude.

Drogon, able to perceive her thoughts, laughed out gout of flame.


	10. Chapter 10

Once they had located the Kingsroad and begun to follow it North, Dany glanced back at him and said, "Is that what Ser Davos was talking about, before you quieted him? You took a knife to the heart for your people, you even gave up…"

He sighed and planted his hands on his hips, staring down at where Drogon's feet had churned up the mud.

"I gave up my life. Yes."

"How did it happen?"

"I was betrayed. Stabbed by four men who thought _I_ was betraying _them_ , that I was betraying the entire Night's Watch by allying with wildlings. I understand why. The Watch has been fighting wildlings, real people they could see, for centuries. And then comes me, newly made Lord Commander, and young, and a bastard on top of it all, and I was telling them to ally with the wildlings to fight the undead.

"They were skeptical, as you are. As you should be. They could not trust me. They felt they had but one choice, to protect the Watch. I even commend them for their loyalty, on days when I feel especially kind."

He leaned back, letting cold air rush in between them, and Dany felt movement against her shoulder blades. Looking back, she saw him rubbing his chest through his thick leather hauberk.

"Does it still hurt?" she asked.

"It hurt when it happened. While I died. But after… once I was back… no. It's just the… memory of it, that hurts. Phantom pain, they call it, like when a man loses an arm or leg but can still feel it. I know the wounds are healed. All that's left are scars. But I can still feel the knives inside me, sometimes."

It sounded horrible. She wished he had not had to suffer it. But what point were regrets? Nothing could be changed, now. Once she'd thought that not even death could be reversed, and she felt a flash of anger at Drogo's death, once more. If she'd had a red witch with her, that day when Drogo had been injured, perhaps he could have been brought back.

But if she hadn't been so bloody stupid to think a just-conquered slave would help her new owner, Drogo might not have died, either.

There were so many choices to make. So much well-meaning behind them. And in the end, everything would end as it would end.

Except for Jon Snow, apparently.

"So fire doesn't hurt you?" he asked.

"No."

"What does it feel like?"

"It feels hot. Like… Have you ever been licked?"

Jon was silent behind her for so long, she twisted around to look at him, and found his cheeks reddening. Against the small of her back, something was prodding her. She spun back around to face forward.

"Yes," he said, a bit hoarse, at last.

"It feels like that," said Dany faintly. "Except instead of wet, it's just… hot. But not painful."

They said nothing for quite a few miles after that. Soon, the prodding lessened and went away altogether, to Dany's mingled relief and… another emotion. Chagrin? Curiosity? She berated herself until her reasoning circled around to acceptance, and perhaps a little justification. She had not been with a man since leaving Daario behind in Meereen, almost six months ago. Jon was handsome, healthy, strong. He seemed caring. Passionate. Considerate. He'd probably make an satisfying bed partner.

However… Dany had always been once to banter and match wits, finding the waltz of a man and woman testing and tempting each other, to be an intriguing one, but it appeared Jon did not know how to dance. She wondered if he even knew how to flirt. Probably not. She should have found him dull as dirt.

And yet.

His personality appealed to her in an odd way— he was just as confident as Drogo had been, as Daario was, but without their arrogance. She'd not have thought his straightforwardness and lack of practiced charm could inspire her to more primitive thoughts.

And yet.

As they flew North, it became noticeably colder. Jon wrapped his cloak around her again. She wearied of holding herself so erect in a last-ditch attempt to maintain some sort of professional distance, but after all day yesterday and then today, her back was sore and she allowed herself to relax against him. His arms tightened around her. She felt like she rested in a lover's arms. It was false, but for the moment, it felt real, and she had so few opportunities to just… be. Not one of her many titles, not a queen, just Dany. She was tired of fighting herself, of fighting her attraction to him. Perhaps, even if they could not come to some accord about who the North belonged to, they could come to some sort of… more personal agreement.

Until then, however…

With a muffled groan, she sat up straight again. Cold air rushed into the gap between them until he closed the little distance.

"Something wrong?" he asked. "I don't mind you leaning back, if you're tired."

"Thank you," she replied, but did not rest against him again.

After another hour, Dany could see a forest in the distance, and a river up ahead.

"We're almost there," said Jon. "Once we cross the river, it's just a few miles beyond there. It's in the middle of a plain, you can't miss it."

He sounded eager to see his home again, and no wonder. A dart of envy pierced Dany's heart. How she ached for a home, a place she could always return to, where she belonged and was safe. Halls and rooms she could walk blindfolded, so familiar were they. She supposed that for her, Dragonstone was 'home', but it was a ghastly place, especially in comparison to the warm breezes and pale colors and flowing silks of Pentos. Dragonstone was unrelenting rock, scoured by hard salt winds, utterly lacking in softness and light. When she was queen, she would assign rule of the castle as a punishment to any lords who might displease her.

One question about Jon yet persisted.

"How did you return to life?"

His indrawn breath in her ear told her she had surprised him.

"The red witch Melisandre brought me back."

Dany hummed in thought. "She is why I asked you to journey to Dragonstone."

He stiffened in surprise. "She was there? What did she say?"

"Just that you had seen things that I should know about. That you have a role to play in the upcoming war."

"I banished her from the North. She sacrificed to her god a child who was dear to Ser Davos. Burned the girl alive."

She sucked in a breath.

"Davos wanted to execute her, but…" He sighed. "I couldn't do it. Because she's a woman, and because of what she'd done for me. I wasn't happy to be revived, but it happened. She gave me a second chance, to be here to take care of my sister and serve my people. I spared her life in payment of that."

She contemplated a world without him. Her life would doubtless have been far easier, without a king in the North to have to bully into bending the knee, but… the world was a harsh place. A cold and uncaring place. There was little true chivalry in it, little real honor, little genuine compassion. It needed a Jon Snow in it. She herself had a god-directed destiny, a birthright, but she was coming to see that Jon had one of his own. She hoped she could find a way for them to fulfill those destinies without having to clash with each other. She did not want to have to destroy him.

Finally the squat, round towers of Winterfell appeared in the distance.

"They'll have sentries watching, so they'll see us arrive," said Jon. "If Drogon puts us down outside the gate, there will be less…"

"Fuss?"

"Screaming panic," he said with a grin. "I can't wait to see their faces."

 _Down, my love,_ she told Drogon, and he began to coast toward the ground. As they descended, she could see a small assembly on the plain, all ranged around what appeared to be a funeral pyre. Drawn by the sight and sound of Drogon overhead, more people began to spill from within the castle walls, neck craned back to stare up at them in the sky.

"Someone has died," she said.

"Wonder who?" replied Jon, concern in his voice. "Can we land nearby?"

Dany asked her dragon to do so, and with an ear-splitting scream he banked hard— making Jon hold her so tightly she could scarcely breathe— and then dropped the last fifty feet straight down with a massive thud. Drogon was at the end of his patience in taking orders that day, it seemed.

 _Unnecessary to rattle our teeth in the landing, my beauty,_ she told him, more of a joke than a scold, and gave his spiky neck a fond pat.

"Here they come." Jon leaped down and then held his arms up for her.

She was surprised at that, and more than capable of hoisting her own carcass to the ground, but why not? Flinging her leg over Drogon's neck, she hopped off, caught right away by Jon. For the barest moment, they were pressed together from shoulder to knee, and their eyes caught, but then Drogon glimpsed sight of a family of deer standing at the edge of the dense forest. Clearly finding them a suitable meal, off he raced to catch his dinner, and Jon hastily set Dany down before heading briskly toward the mass of people standing a few dozen feet away by the pyre, motionless, staring in shock. She followed at a rather more sedate pace.

"Bet you'd not have expected such an entrance from me!" he called to them, and then his gait faltered, and he came to a sudden stop. "Arya? Arya!"

He began to run. Dany increased her pace, too, though remained at what she felt was a dignified trot.

A slight boy separated himself from the group, taking a few steps forward before starting to run, as well, and soon they had crashed into each other. They stood there, rocking back and forth, laughing and gasping, until Dany arrived to stand next to them.

Eventually, Jon said pulled back with the biggest smile she'd ever seen on him, and revealed the boy was really a girl. She wore a pair of small but wicked-looking blades, one to each side, and there was a coldness, a flatness behind her eyes that Dany had only seen in mercenaries. How did a girl that young become capable of so much?

 _But then,_ Dany mused, she was none too old herself, and look at what she had managed to accomplish.

"Your Grace, this is my sister, Arya Stark. Arya…" He gestured. "This is Daenerys Targaryen."

Arya stared at her for a long moment and then offered a shallow nod. "Welcome to the North."

Dany was a bit annoyed that he had not included any of her titles— not one!— but she supposed they did not hold as strongly to ceremony up here. It seemed a barren, unwelcoming place. She hoped, when she ruled it, she would not have to come visit it often. Perhaps she'd restrict her royal progresses North to the summer years only.

"Thank you," she said to the girl. By then, others had approached, and Jon was embracing another girl, this one quite as tall as he was, with lovely auburn hair and a regal air. Behind her stood two gigantic people, with matching expressions of apprehension and suspicion. The scarred behemoth looked exactly like she'd expected a Northron man to look: ferocious, rugged, and tough as old boots. The other was… a woman? Yes, a woman, though an ugly one, with hair almost as fair as Dany's herself, and her pale lashes framed eyes that rivaled any Targaryen's in beauty.

"We're glad you're back, of course, but didn't expect you to arrive like this!" exclaimed the girl when Jon released her. She turned to Dany and bobbed a graceful curtsy. "May I assume this is Her Grace, the dragon queen?"

 _Finally, someone who respected her titles._ Even if she only used one of them. And not even one of the good ones.

"You may," said Dany, and reached out a hand in recognition of the girl's excellent manners.

"Your Grace, this is my sister, Sansa Stark," said Jon. "Behind her is her sworn shield, Lady Brienne of Tarth—" here the ugly woman gave her a brief nod, "and the big fellow looming around back there looks familiar to me, but I don't recall his name."

The big looming fellow scowled, looking very menacing indeed. Many men would have quailed at such a look, but Jon only looked confused.

"This is a particular friend of mine, from when I was in King's Landing," Sansa told them. She didn't touch the man, didn't move a finger, but when she looked at him, some delicious tension appeared to seize her, and the smile she beamed in his direction was telling. "Sandor Clegane, lord of Clegane Hall."

" 'M not lord of anything," he muttered, nodding distractedly at Dany while shooting a glare at Sansa, which she disregarded entirely. And rightfully so, because it was the sort of glare that long-married men gave their wives, familiar and loving at the same time it was exasperated.

Jon's eyebrows shot up so high they almost disappeared into his hairline. "There's a story behind that," he said, "but first tell me what you're all doing out here. Someone died?"

"We've so much to tell you, Jon," Sansa said. "But let's fire up his pyre so we can get back inside where it's warm, and then we can all talk about our adventures."

Arya's gaze flicked over Dany, at that. "Looks like yours have been far more interesting than ours."

"Doubt that," he replied, tousling her short hair. She ducked away and jogged back to the pyre, shooing the smallfolk back inside the walls.

They started over. "Lord Baelish has killed himself," Sansa told Jon as they walked, nodding when he gave a little twitch of surprise.

"He confessed to all sort of things," exclaimed Arya. She pulled the tall torch from where it had been stuck upright in the snow and waved it about. "He confessed to things we didn't even know he'd done. A small measure of justice has been served."

She did a brief, but crazed-looking, little jig with the torch, stabbing the torch into the pile of wood until it caught flame, then moved around the pyre until she'd set the entire thing alight. Clegane stepped back, a flash of fear in his eyes, before positioning himself behind Sansa and placing his enormous hands on her trembling shoulders. Jon watched them, clearly bursting with questions, but held them back for the moment.

They gathered around the perimeter of the pyre. It was a scanty affair, not very high and only as big around as was needed to prop the cheap, flimsy coffin on. As they watched the coffin burn, the sickly-sweet odor of roasting human meat filled the air. The smell even drew Drogon out of the woods, licking his chops of deer meat as he approached, each step making the earth shake.

Sansa and Brienne looked a little queasy from it, but Dany had seen— been the cause of— so much burning that it only made her nostalgic, and she wondered if she might be turning into a bit of a monster. Perhaps she needed an idealistic fool like Jon Snow to keep her from that descent into madness, the Targaryen's most persistent legacy.

Dany ambled over to Drogon and placed a hand on his nose, giving it a fond pat. She could tell he'd eaten well and felt drowsy.

"I see no mountains here," Dany said to Jon. "Are there any caves big enough for my darling to sleep in?"

He walked over to stand by her. Drogon just watched as he advanced, and then stretched out his massive neck so he could bump his head into Jon's chest.

 _Ours_ , he thought to Dany again.

 _Yours, perhaps,_ she thought back, a touch sourly.

 _Ours,_ Drogon insisted.

Jon looked between the dragon and Dany in wonderment, his face as delighted as a child's on his name day.

"If he promises not to burn down any of the trees, he can stay in the godswood for the night," Jon said.

 _My love?_ Dany inquired, rubbing between Drogon's eyes. He closed them in pleasure, then pulled away to make a running leap into the sky. She and Jon returned to the pyre.

"Who wants to say a few words before we send him to hell?" asked Sansa coldly, her demeanor having switched in the blink of an eye. _No love lost on this fellow, then,_ Dany thought.

After an awkward little silence, Lady Brienne stepped forward. "He was an untrustworthy man, and caused a lot of suffering. I believe the world is better for his loss." And she stepped back.

Clegane didn't move, but he spat with admirable accuracy dead-center onto the coffin lid. "Littlefucker was a treacherous cunt. My only regret is that I didn't kill him myself. Should have done, years ago. Would have spared all of Westeros a lot of buggering trouble. Won't make that mistake again."

A plain-speaker, he. Dany could appreciate that, even as she winced at his indelicacy. By the way Sansa glowed at him, it did not seem an obstacle to her sentiments.

They waiting a few moments, but no one else was forthcoming, so Jon stepped into the breach. "Who's next?"


	11. Chapter 11

"Who's next?" asked Jon, and Arya decided it was her time.

She stared at the box burning merrily on the pyre and said, "You didn't get half of what you deserved for causing Father's death—"

"What?" Jon demanded.

"Later," Sansa whispered. "For now, just…" She gestured to the coffin. "I want him gone. Forever."

"—and Sansa's—" Here, she paused, gaze flying to her sister, whose face could have been carved from marble. "-pain. So I'm glad you're dead. I wish it had hurt more. I wish you could feel the fire as it eats you. I hope you never find any rest. May you be damned forever."

She ignored the surprised faces ranged around her, knowing she'd revealed a bit more of her bloodthirst than she'd intended, but once able to give throat to her thoughts, she'd not held back.

Only Sansa was left. She trembled under the Hound's hands and sucked in a deep breath before speaking.

"You said you loved our mother— that you loved _me_ — and yet you did nothing but cause us torment. Facing the gods with what you've done is the least of your worries. Now you have to face our mother and her wrath. I hope her scorn causes you as much sorrow as you brought to us."

And then she pulled free from the Hound's tender grasp and walked away, turning her back on the last of Petyr Baelish. The rest of them followed her, silent and grim. The dragon queen's face was oddly sympathetic, Arya thought, and marveled at her presence in Winterfell.

As Jon approached the gate into the courtyard, an unearthly howl came from within Winterfell's walls.

"Ghost!" Jon exclaimed, his face lighting with pleasure, and he began to jog toward the gate. Arya galloped after him and watched with a broad grin as the direwolf pounced on his master, lavishing his face with kisses as Jon tried to scratch or pat whatever part of Ghost he could reach.

Even the smallfolk stopped to watch with fond expressions, proud of their king. As far as they were concerned, having a direwolf as a companion was just proof that the old gods had not deserted the North and had blessed its rulers with a symbol of their approval.

The excited calls of "Jon is back! The king is here!" ceased, however, when the dragon queen walked in. She was a short little thing, barely taller than Arya, but the way she held herself was every inch a queen. Even Sansa could not match her regality.

But that regal mien shifted as she watched Jon frolic in the dirt with Ghost.

"Oh," she said in surprise. Perhaps she had not heard of their direwolves.

Jon grinned up at her from the ground.

"Sorry," he said, not seeming sorry at all. "Ghost, off, off." He sat up, dodging the sloppy kisses the creature insisted to lavish upon him. "This is my friend, Ghost."

The queen regarded Ghost soberly and then gave the direwolf a gracious nod. "I am honored to meet you, Ghost."

Ghost stared at her before sitting back on his haunches and giving her a wide doggy grin. Jon heaved himself up from the ground and started to make his way inside.

"It's late, I'm famished. Sansa, what's our best room?"

"Yours," she replied.

"Ah, that's perfect. Your Grace, you'll stay in my room, then." He snatched his pack from the ground where he'd discarded it to leap at Ghost. "Can the laundresses wash these up? We'll need them for tomorrow."

Sansa handed the pack off to a servant hovering nearby; they two exchanged an arcane series of facial tics, wordlessly communicating in a womanly way that Arya felt quite left out of.

"I'd like to just eat in the solar tonight, not the great hall. Too much to talk about," Jon continued as they all trailed him into the keep. "You'll all join us, yes?" He swept a glance over their little assembly, including the Hound and Brienne, who both agreed.

Sansa caught the eye of another servant. More tics were exchanged, and the servant left, presumably to instruct the kitchens as to their lord's desire.

"Has any new mead been brewed? I've been missing it, though the food they're giving us in Dragonstone is like nothing I've had before."

He flashed a smile over his shoulder at the queen, who just watched him with a faint expression of amusement on her lovely face.

"What are you grinning at, then?" he asked her. Arya thought must have become quite well-acquainted in their short time since meeting, if he could interpret that bare hint of humor on her features as a grin.

"If I'm to sleep in your room, my lord, does that mean we shall cement our alliance in a more… permanent way?"

He stopped walking, so abruptly that Arya slammed into his back, bumping her nose on his hard-armored shoulder. Then he blushed. It was agonizing to watch.

"I meant— I _didn_ _'_ _t_ mean— I'll be in my old bedroom. From before," Jon said. "You'll be in the lord's chamber. By yourself. Without me."

"Ah," was all she said, but there was something in her tone that made Arya mentally commit herself to keeping a close eye— even closer than she'd already intended— on the queen while she was at Winterfell.

"Still as smooth with the ladies as ever," she whispered in her brother's ear as they climbed the stairs to the solar.

"Shut it, you," he muttered. "I'm not _trying_ to be smooth with her."

"Good, because you're failing miserably."

"Was I glad to have you back?" he asked rhetorically as they entered the solar. "What a fool I am. Ah, it's lovely to be home. Your Grace, please sit."

He pulled out a chair for the dragon queen, waiting as she removed her cloak and taking it, handing it and his own to yet another servant. Sansa did a complicated maneuver with her eyebrows that doubtlessly meant the cloaks would be cleaned and returned in the morning.

Arya installed herself in a chair right by Jon. The Hound took the one closest to Sansa, of course, and Brienne sat in the last vacant one, between the Hound and the queen. Soon the big round table was groaning beneath the weight of the platters covering it.

Jon remembered his manners, she saw, and filled a plate for the queen before getting his own. She watched with amusement as the Hound, noticing Jon's actions, began to do the same, though with the assumption that Sansa would eat as much as he himself would, because the plate he handed her was mounded with enough food to keep her for half a week.

Arya almost laughed, but when she saw how happy it made Sansa, she bit her lip and concentrated on cutting her meat.

After a few moment of silence, but for the clink of silverware on pottery and the occasional slurp from a goblet, Jon spoke.

"So, how did Lord Baelish's death come about?"

"He walked into the hall while I was holding court, handed me a scroll, and walked back out. He had written out a confession of all manner of things," Sansa said carefully, her gaze flicking to the dragon queen before returning to Jon. "Brienne ran right out to bring him back, but by the time she found him, he'd taken poison and died."

"I see."

"Sweetrobin will need a new Lord Protector, now," she added.

"I'd do it, but I have to go to King's Landing and kill Cersei," Arya said. She didn't mean it, of course, but it sounded good.

He turned to her. "And now I'd like an explanation of where you've been. You look…"

"Dangerous?" Arya prompted. "Mysterious? Lethal? "

"Mean. You look hard and mean." Concern furled his brow.

Arya reeled at that, dismayed, then dismayed more when she realized she was disappointed not because she was sorry she looked that way, but because she thought she'd done better at disguising it.

 _Must work on my straight face,_ she noted mentally. _Must be able to fool others into thinking I_ _'_ _m pleasant and harmless._

"I am hard and mean," she agreed. "Have had to be."

Jon was still frowning at her. "Where were you all this time?"

"Braavos."

"Doing what?"

"Learning to fight. And other things."

"What other things?"

Arya just grinned at him. "Handy things. Helpful things."

"You're not going to tell me, are you?"

"No."

He sighed, then turned to Sansa. "And you."

She looked alarmed. "What about me?"

"I've been gone a month, and you've—" He waved a hand in the Hound's direction. "I've remembered who you are now, ser."

"Not a ser," the Hound grumbled around a mouthful of mutton. "Just call me Clegane."

"The Lannisters' faithful dog. So why are you here? And why are you so… friendly… with my sister?"

The Hound set down his fork and wiped his mouth with his napkin. "Back in King's Landing, I did what I could to protect Sa— _Lady_ Sansa from Joffrey. Not enough, but as much as possible. Offered to bring her home, too, when I decided to leave, but she refused. Met up with the wolf-bitch—"

"Don't call her that—"

"-Hush, little bird— and spent, what, a year traveling together?" He looked over at Arya. She snorted.

"Seemed like a decade," she said with feeling. "And don't say it that way, as if we were having a grand tour of Westeros. That year was utter shit. _You_ were utter shit. How many times did I try to kill you?"

"And then the one time I wanted you to, you wouldn't do it, you contrary bitch." His eyes glinted at her over the rim of his goblet as he drank.

"I can kill you now, though," she shot back at him.

"You can try."

"Enough," Jon interrupted mildly. "Continue with your tale."

"So this big bitch—" he jerked a thumb at Brienne and ignored her hostile glare "-caught me after I'd been wounded earlier. We fought. She threw me off a fucking cliff. The wolf-bi—" the Hound stopped, looked at Sansa's burgeoning frown, and corrected himself. "— _she_ left me to die. Didn't, though. Eventually, I met up with the Brotherhood without Banners. They invited me to tag along with them. Had nothing else to do, so I agreed. We came North, headed for Eastwatch-by-the-sea. I stopped by Winterfell to see if Sansa were here. She was. I stayed."

Done with his tale, he resumed eating.

"I see." Jon frowned down at his plate, took another bite.

"And you?" prompted Sansa. "We received your raven that you'd arrived safely, thank you. How is Ser Davos? Since Her Grace is present—" she paused to smile graciously at the dragon queen "—does that mean you have struck up an alliance?"

Jon and the queen exchanged a glance.

"I require more proof than just Lord Stark's word," the queen said. "If I am to commit my men, and set aside my determination to rule all seven of the Seven Kingdoms to settle for only six, I must see with my own eyes this undead threat we face."

"We're headed for Hardhome," Jon added. "To show her the White Walkers and the wights they create from the dead. Have you heard from Tormund?"

Brienne huffed. Her manners were too good to permit her to hunch over her plate, but she bent her head to stare down at it, and focused with pinpoint precision on excising a sliver of gristle from her meat, cheeks aflame.

Sansa gave a delicate cough. "He sent a raven, but it was a near-illegible note expressing his… passionate admiration of Lady Brienne and bore no news of their travels."

"Love is in the air," murmured the queen, toying with her fork.

"You don't know the half of it," said the Hound, glancing Arya's way. She had a bad feeling about what would come out of his mouth next. "Arya's old mate from before she and I wandered the riverlands has made his way here after learning how to forge Valyrian steel. Gave her that new dagger as a wedding present, he did."

Jon's mouth dropped open. But before he could speak, indignation had Arya slamming her fork down.

"It's not a wedding present!" she exclaimed. "It's just a… present. We're friends. He made it for me as a friend."

The Hound chuckled evilly into his goblet.

"Your Grace," Sansa said with a touch of desperation, clearly trying to keep her sister and her… whatever the Hound was… from worsening the situation. "I understand you have taken Tyrion Lannister as your hand. How is he?"

"He fares well, and sends his regards. He hopes to have the chance to speak with you in person about the future of your marriage, but if that chance does not come, he requests that you send him a raven with your wishes."

Sansa flicked a glance at Clegane.

"Yes," she said faintly, "I will send him a raven about it soon. Thank you, Your Grace."

Brienne finished eating first, and excused herself to make sure Podrick was cleaning her sword and armor correctly. Sansa and the Hound left soon thereafter, the queen going along to be shown to her— Jon's— room.

"I'll have a shift brought to your room, to sleep in, Your Grace," she told the dragon queen. "Leave those clothes outside your door, I'll have them laundered and returned to you by the morning."

"Thank you," the queen replied with a nod, her voice faint as they ascended the spiraling stairs.

That left Arya and Jon. They finished their meals in companionable silence. When she was done, Arya tossed her napkin onto her plate and leaned back with a sigh of contentment.

"You should know something. We've just learned it ourselves. It's not something to be said in front of our guests, and I don't know when Sansa will have a chance to talk to you, so I'll say it now: Brienne has had word from a friend in King's Landing. Cersei is sending shiploads of soldiers to land in White Harbor and start her invasion of the North from there."

Jon went very still. "This friend. He can be trusted?"

"Brienne insists so."

He was thinking so hard she could practically see steam come from his ears. "Has Lord Manderly been made aware?"

"Sansa sent a raven right away."

"Oldcastle, House Cerwin and Ramsgate are closest."

"They've all be alerted as well, and are sending men to White Harbor."

"And send men from Torrhen's Square and Barrowton to take Moat Cailin. It's too perfect a base from which the Lannister forces can operate in the North, if we don't manage to route them in White Harbor. I'd send Howland Reed but he's already going south to take the Twins."

"You want _me_ to tell them? They won't listen to me, Jon. They might not even listen to Sansa."

He raked his hands through his hair, looking around the room until he glimpsed a quill and ink pot on the desk in the corner. Sitting at the desk, he rummaged for some parchment, and began writing. When he was done, he signed at the bottom and poured sand over it all to drink the ink, then handed it to Arya.

"How's that, do you think?"

It contained clear, concise, and unequivocal instructions for what each lord in the North was to be doing at the precise point in time. Arya looked up from it to where Jon was standing, waiting for her verdict. She'd known Jon was bright, but this level of organization and political maneuvering hinted at genius. She handed the parchment back to him.

"It's good," she said. "It's terrific. I'll give it to Sansa in the morning." He flopped back into his chair, looking relieved, but not for long, because Arya continued, "I want to go with you. To Hardhome."

"No. Tell me about this 'old mate' who forged you something of Valyrian steel."

"No. It's been so long since we've seen one another; stay longer than just one day."

"Can't. I told them we'd be back in a week. If I don't get her to Dragonstone in time, they might expect the worst. I don't want Ser Davos and our men to have to bear the brunt of such a misunderstanding."

"It's hard to believe she's set this whole thing in motion. She looks so…"

"So…?"

"So _soft_. Pale and airy. Like a meringue."

Jon barked out a laugh. "I've no doubt she cultivates that impression on purpose, but don't let it fool you. I promise you, Arya, she's pure steel. Driven. Dangerous, because she is convinced the gods intend her to be queen. She's not power-hungry like Cersei. Remember what Father always told us about zealots? That the sacred can be so much more deadly than the profane, because those who act on behalf of gods think they'll get their reward whether they die or not.

"Cersei has a vested interest in keeping herself alive. If she knows she's losing, she'll try to escape and rally another day. Daenerys Targaryen, though…"

He paused and thrust a hand through his windswept curls again.

"She's in it for the legacy. For the principle, for the rightness she feels it has. And she'll die trying to get it. If she knows she's losing, she'll stand there and meet her death straight on. And nothing less than death will stop her."

Jon seemed troubled by the thought. It made Arya laugh.

"What's funny about that?" he demanded.

"You say it with a frown, as if you're not the same exact way. As if Father weren't the same exact way."

He stared at her, startled, his eyes wide. "I wouldn't die in a grab for power. I don't want the power I've got. Didn't Sansa tell you? I didn't want any of this, I—"

"Yes, yes, she told me everything. Even about your dying, which we need to discuss at some point, too." Arya gave him a pointed look. "I just meant that you put yourself on the line because of the principle and the rightness you feel, too. So did Father. You're so like him, Jon."

The scene of Ned's execution flashed before her eyes, as it often did, and she turned her face away, eyes clenched shut against the tears.

"I miss him too," he said.

"I was there," she muttered. "I saw how Sansa screamed and struggled against the guards holding her. She's been through a lot, Jon. A lot more than we know, I think."

"And what have you been through?" He flicked a fingertip against the hilt of Needle. "You told Clegane you could kill him. Was that idle talk, or have you learned to use this?"

"I can use it." She pulled both blades free of her belt and laid them on the table, then found a scrap of whetstone in a pocket. Unsheathing Bodkin, she began to run the whetstone over its edge.

Jon gave it an admiring glance. "Where did you learn?"

"Father got me a teacher in King's Landing. I began there. Then I learned more in Braavos."

"Why Braavos?"

"Had a friend from there. He said if I needed help, to come to him. So I went. He taught me… a lot of things."

"Helpful and handy things?"

"Yes." She glanced over at him. He looked tired, with rings below his eyes. "You should go to bed. You've a long way to go, and a queen to convince. When you come back, we'll talk more then."

"Will we?" Jon stood, staring down at her. Those piercing eyes of his had always had the knack of making her spill her secrets.

She nodded. "We will. I'll tell you more. You'll tell me about how you died and then came back to life. We can spar. I'll kick your arse."

That sweet smile of his flashed. "You can hope so."

Arya leapt to her feet, jamming Needle and Bodkin back into place in her belt. "Oho, a challenge! You'll be laughing out the other side of your face, I promise."

He lunged at her and she sidestepped him, giggling, then dashed from the room with him on her heels. They raced up the stairs to the wing of private chambers, quieting so as to not wake any who might have fallen asleep already.

"I'm glad you're back with us," said Jon. "I've worried about you so much, these past few years."

Arya didn't trust herself to speak, so she just flung herself at him, hugging him around the waist. His arms came around her, and she wavered between the present and the past, recalling their farewell when he'd left for Castle Black, before everything had fallen to shit.

"I worried about you, too," she whispered before peeling herself off him and dashing into her room. She leaned back against the closed door and let fall the tears she'd been holding in. She knew Jon was just standing there, and wondered what he was thinking, until she heard his footsteps take him to the other end of the hall, to his childhood bedroom.

She undressed and fell into bed, her mind a-whirl from the day's events, moving in all directions at once, trying to puzzle out all the many things happening: Cersei, Sansa and the Hound, Brienne and her secret love. Gendry. And now Daenerys Bloody Targaryen, in their very home, and Jon, being so Jon-like, trying so hard to do the right thing.

She didn't trust the dragon queen. She did trust Jon, however.

That would have to be enough.

For now.


	12. Chapter 12

Daenerys woke the next morning feeling quite refreshed. Unlike her previous night at Greywater Watch, she'd been warm and comfortable the entire time. Stretching, she looked around the room to examine it as she'd been too tired to do the evening before.

The big room was nicely-appointed, with everything a kingly personage might need to take their ease. Warm sun poured through the banks of windows along two of the walls, and a fire had already been started in the grate. The huge, fur-covered bed was quite decadent, though when Dany rested her head upon the pillows, she could not detect any hint of the scent she'd come to associate with Jon.

Though she'd exile to the Shadow Lands anyone who might accuse her of _sniffing_ said pillows.

She left the delightful bed, warm despite her nudity, and stretched. Warming by the fire on a chair was a stack of her clothing, boots in place just below, freshly polished. But on the chair next to it were more clothes, two each of linen under-tunics, heavy wool over-tunics and trousers, and fur-lined boots that would reach over her knee. Laid across the back of the chair was a cloak in the Northron style Jon and the others wore, lined neck-to-hem with gray fur and with a shaggy pelt draped around the shoulders. It could, she saw upon inspection, be drawn up around the head and fastened to become a hood.

A light knock sounded at the door. Dany took one of the linen under-tunics and slipped it over her head. "Come."

Sansa opened the door, poking her head in. "Oh! I'm sorry, Your Grace, I didn't mean to disturb you—"

"You're not. Please come in." Dany pulled on fresh smallclothes as Sansa entered. "Have I you to thank for these warmer garments?"

"Yes, I was worried, as you've not been so far North before, and what you had might fare well up to Winterfell, but by the Wall, you'd have frozen."

Dany stepped into the trousers, pulled on an over-tunic. There was even a new belt, wider and stronger than her own. As she buckled it on, Sansa said, "I noticed your dagger seemed a bit… floppy, and thought you might like it more secure."

Dany stepped into the boots. They fit as if made for her, and suddenly she realized, it all had been. Glancing over at Sansa, she saw the girl was a bit tired-looking, circles like pale bruises under her eyes.

"You must have been up all night. How did you find the time do do all this?" she asked. "And why?"

Sansa blinked. "Well, I had already started them for Arya, and only had to make a few adjustments to fit you instead." She ran a discerning, impersonal eye over Dany's body, and Dany knew she was in the presence of a master seamstress. "The boots were to be hers, as was the belt." She grinned. "I've beggared my sister for you, so you must be properly grateful."

"I am," Dany replied with an answering smile. "She will not suffer their loss?"

"She'll be relieved for it," said Sansa with a negligent wave of the hand. "She hates thinking about clothes. I'm sure I'll have to burn her horrid old things when I do get to give her new clothes, just to make sure she can't wear them again."

"Where did the cloak come from?"

"Oh, that was mine." Sansa reached out and snapped off a stray thread, tossing it in the fire. "I shortened it for you. Did you look under it? With what I trimmed off, I made you gloves."

Dany lifted the cloak, and sure enough, a pair of gloves, fur-lined and supple, sat there.

"I hope they fit," Sansa added, so Dany tried them on.

"Perfect," she said tonelessly.

Sansa noticed the flatness of her voice. "Your Grace, have I offended you with these things? If so, I beg your pardon. It was not meant as a slight to your own seamstresses. I can see the quality of your clothing is excellent, just not warm enough—"

"No, you've not offended me. Apologies. I am just wondering if you expect something in return for them." Dany looked from the gloves to Sansa and waited.

The other girl regarded her for a few seconds. "Several years ago, I'd have been both hurt and shocked that you might think I was trying to bribe or obligate you in some way. I used to be very ignorant, you see, and never expected any ill of anyone. But I have learned, and learned well. I can see you've lived a life where few things were given freely, and I'm sorry for it. But you are wise to wonder and ask.

"No, I expect nothing in return for these garments, unless it might be that you look out for Jon while you travel. Protect him, if you can. He gives all of himself, every time, and I worry that one day, there won't be anything left of him."

Dany nodded at her. "I can do that."

"And… I know it's hard. I know that he's asked a lot of you. It's not easy to believe blindly, that I know, but try to trust him; you won't find a man more deserving of it on this or any other continent, I promise you."

"I am starting to think you are right." Dany turned to bundle up her things but Jon had the pack with him.

A soft touch on her arm had her turning to find Sansa holding out a pack to her, made of waxed canvas, with a sturdy strap to be slung across one's torso. Dany put the new, warmer clothes into it.

"Will you leave your lighter things here? Jon tells me you'll be stopping back on your return to Dragonstone, and you can get them then."

Dany agreed, and replaced them on the chair before following her out of the room and down to the solar, where the men had already begun to break their fast.

Jon hopped easily to his feet at their entrance, his face lighting in what Dany was coming to realize was his usual quick, sweet smile. "Your Grace, good morning. I made a plate for you." He gestured to it, then pulled out a chair for her. She sat, murmuring her thanks.

Slower, but still doing it, was Clegane. His savaged face was grumpy, but his eyes were tender, and he even curled half his mouth in a slight smile when Sansa beamed at him in pleasure.

"Good morning to you all," Dany told them. Brienne was absent, she saw, as was Arya, so it was the four of them. They ate in silence until Sansa spoke.

"The men of the vale…"

"Mmm?" prompted Jon, his mouth full of bread.

"Now that Littlefinger is gone, they'll need a new leader. The Vale— Sweetrobin— will need a new Lord Protector."

"Mmm." Jon chewed thoughtfully, then swallowed. "Have anyone in mind?"

She nodded demurely, and looked at Clegane. "I think Sandor would do very well in the position."

Clegane blinked, sitting very upright in surprise before tossing down his fork and turning to her. "Finally lost your mind, have you, little bird? I'm no buggering Lord Protector."

"You could be," she replied coolly. "You'd excel at it. You've experience leading troops, and you wouldn't be intimidated if Sweetrobin fought you on decisions you made on behalf of the Vale."

"I know nothing about managing a kingdom!" Clegane protested.

"I do. I'll help you."

"Haven't you your hands full of this one already?"

Sansa shrugged. "What's one more?"

"The Vale… of Arryn?" Dany said into the tense silence that fell. "It is one of my kingdoms, is it not? The rocky, mountainous one we flew over upon leaving Dragonstone?"

"It is, Your Grace," said Jon warily.

"And its lord, this Sweetrobin. He is not of age to rule alone?"

"No, Your Grace," said Sansa, "he is only twelve years old. And he is… inexperienced. He will need extensive education and training before he is fit to rule the Vale by himself."

"I see. And you are set upon having Clegane serve as its Lord Protector. Why?"

Sansa met her gaze directly. "I want him to receive a lordship for his service. Possibly a castle of his own to rule, of those that are left without a lord, when all this is done."

Clegane stared at her, confused and unhappy. "You never cared if I were a lord before. I thought you were done with your fancies of knights and heroes. Am I no longer good enough as I am?"

Sansa tsked at him, annoyed. "You were always good enough, and always will be, and you know it. But I mean to have you, Sandor, and the only way that can happen without upheaval among the lords of the North is if you raise yourself up until you are seen to deserve a Stark. And for that, your rank needs to be higher."

Jon broke in, "So you're decided on him, then, Sansa?" At her firm nod, he leaned across the table to extend his hand. "Clegane, you're a scary bastard, but Sansa's a keen judge of character, and I can see for myself that you'd die for her."

"Aye," grumbled Clegane, though Dany could see it was for show, when his eyes were blazing with emotion every time he set them on his lady love. "Though sometimes I wonder if I'll die _because_ of her. She'll be the death of me, for certain."

Jon smiled a little. "In that case, I welcome you to our family. You're a Stark now, no matter your last name, so you've no escape from the madness."

"Your idea has merit, Lady Sansa," said Dany, "and I wish to reward you for your kindness, earlier. So as queen of the Seven Kingdoms-" here, she paused and shot Jon a telling look, to which he responding with a smiling shake of the head "—I hereby name Sandor Clegane as Lord Protector of the Vale of Arryn, regent for… Sweetrobin…"

"His real name is Robert Arryn, Your Grace," Sansa said helpfully, her face aglow with pleasure.

"—Robert Arryn, until such time as I remove him or he decides to end his service in this capacity."

"Thank you!" Sansa reached across the table to clasp one of Dany's hands. "Thank you."

"Your first task, as Lord Protector of the Vale, is to ensure Lord Robert is safe. And continue to lend all aid as needed to the North, until further notice." she continued. They all stared at her in shock. She shrugged. "Just until I need it back. Which might be sooner than you think, depending on how… things go in the next few days."

Clegane was looking frankly stunned, even a little green around the gills.

"Perhaps he needs a few moments to recover?" Dany suggested, unable to keep her mouth from curving. She did enjoy causing mischief, having so few opportunities to do so.

"And we must be away," added Jon. "We're already getting a late start."

Dany bundled herself into her new Northron cloak and called to Drogon as they walked out into the courtyard. There they found the reason for Arya's and Brienne's absences: they were sparring, and from the looks of it, giving each other a fine challenge. Brienne had strength and the reach of her longer limbs on her side, but Arya's compact frame allowed her the speed and agility the bigger woman lacked.

"Lady Brienne should have a shield," Dany murmured to Jon. "That's not a greatsword. It leaves her left hand open. Vulnerable."

"You're right," he said and looked to Sansa.

"I'll commission one right away," his sister said, and headed for the smithy where a finely-build young man was pounding away at some unfortunate bit of metal, wearing only a filthy apron over his bare chest. He looked up, at Sansa's entry, and Dany saw that he had a very fine and bright pair of eyes.

Something brushed by her, roughly enough to make her sway into Jon, who corrected her overbalance. Then Arya was there, standing squarely between her and the smith so that the view of him was occluded, arms crossed and a mutinous expression on her face. Dany had never seen such a clear example of being warned off another woman's man before. It was amusing.

"Love is in the air," she said again, and turned back to make her way toward the gate.

"Sorry about that," said Jon, following on her heels. "Arya's not good with…"

"Manners? People?"

"Emotions, I would have said, but those, too." He caught up and walked beside her. "She's a feral little thing, to be sure, but good in spite of it." He looked troubled for a moment. "Or at least she used to be. Not sure what she is now."

When his face took on that sad cast, Dany wanted to comfort him, and she chastised herself severely for the impulse. Until the man bent his knee in recognition of her rulership over all seven kingdoms, he was the enemy. She had to remember that, no matter how appealing he might be, or how kind his sister.

Drogon landed, making the ground quake, and flung back his head in an exultant roar.

"He has discovered a fondness for venison, it would appear," Dany said, for her dragon was very complacent, having eaten his fill last night and that morning.

"I'm glad he's in a good mood," said Jon, "for today shall be a long ride, and a cold one."

He turned to his family for a last farewell. His sisters stood there, wibbling, until he opened his arms, and then they rushed him. He gathered them close, eyes shut as he held them and they snuffled into his shoulders.

"I'll be back in a few days, you silly girls," he said. "You'll barely notice I'm gone."

"I just got you back," whispered Arya, her hand tightening convulsively on his sleeve, and Dany felt an unwelcome dampness in her own eyes, quickly blinked away. Well she knew what it was to be separated from one she loved so dearly; not her brother, no, but she still felt the pain of losing Drogo every day, and even Jorah's absence was felt keenly. She hid her reaction by starting to climb up Drogon's spikes, her face turned away from the others.

Finally the girls detached themselves from their brother. He accepted their packs from Clegane, who had been carrying them for Sansa, strapping one over each shoulder.

"Well," he said, "we'll be back the evening after tomorrow, looks like. Be safe while I'm gone." He nodded to Clegane and Brienne. "I know you're in good hands."

"I don't need hands to be in," Arya muttered. "I've my own hands, dammit."

Jon clambered up behind Dany, fitting himself against her with ease of practice, and gave them one last wave. Dany nodded, meeting the eyes of each person, before giving Drogon the request to fly. Jon's arms clamped around her as the dragon began his lurching, flapping run, and then they were aloft.

It wasn't long before Jon spoke. "Thank you for dealing so nicely with my family. I know they can be…"

He seemed to be groping for words that were both accurate and kind.

"You're welcome," she said, taking pity on him. "It was an interesting experience."

He laughed, breath warm against the rim of her ear. "That's a gentle way of putting it. But I'm glad you got to see how we live. What we stand for. What we're fighting for."

"I am, too." And she was. She was used to seeing monarchs rule from fear. She had seen monarchs rule from love, too— the slaves she'd freed _worshipped_ her. Jon's people followed him out of love, too, but a love borne of respect, of knowledge of his character, of admiration. They loved him because he was _good_ , not because he had done anything specifically for them.

He was, she realized, a good king. A king the people needed. _All_ the people, not just those of the North. A king who could benefit all seven of her kingdoms. The idea teased at the edges of her mind, skirting around but not daring to press further into her consciousness.

 _Still too soon,_ she told herself. _I still have yet to see any proof of these White Walkers._

But what about afterward? When she _had_ seen them with her own eyes? When he was proven truthful, and that her efforts were better spent fighting the undead than Cersei?

What then?


	13. Chapter 13

**Author's Note:** **Thank you to everyone who is leaving reviews! I appreciate your kind compliments very much, and am glad you're enjoying my story.**

* * *

Despite the greater distance from Winterfell to Eastwatch-by-the-sea than they had traveled the previous three days, they made excellent time and touched down outside the castle just as dusk began to turn the world blue and purple.

Dany huddled into her cloak, mentally thanking Sansa once more for her generosity, while surveying her surroundings. The castle perched on the very edge of a cliff, looking as if it were moments from crumbling into the sea, and the wind what whipped up from the shore far below was brutal. She'd never been so cold in her life, and the heat Jon provided while aloft had faded by then.

Men were ranged periodically on the parapet facing away from the water, and torches blazed along its perimeter. One of them called down, "State your name!"

"Jon Snow!" he called back, and right away gears starting whining as the portcullis was raised.

Two men walked out to meet them, one balding with a very unconvincing topknot of snarled ginger hair, the other with a neat beard and an eye patch.

"Your Grace," said Eye Patch, ushering them within the walls. "I am Ser Beric Dondarrion. This is Thoros of Myr. We guide the Brotherhood without Banners, and arrived only a short while ago. You have come at a good time, because the lord in charge of this keep recently died and the men are without leadership."

Those leaderless men, all hard-faced and garbed in black, ranged around them with curious eyes.

Topknot— Thoros, apparently— added, "They're starting to become unruly."

Jon looked them over, then asked, "Who's the highest-ranking man here?"

No one spoke or stepped forward.

"I suppose that's me," answered Beric reluctantly, after looking around and finding no takers. "I'm lord of Blackhaven, and head of House Dondarrion."

"Now lord of Eastwatch-on-the-sea, as well," said Jon, and clapped him on the shoulder. "Congratulations."

Beric paused, then bowed in recognition of the honor just bestowed up on him. "Your Grace."

Then he looked to where Dany stood shivering next to Jon.

"Let us get your companion into the keep," he said kindly, and gestured to the door of blackened wood set in the castle's thick wall. "Back to work, lads," he instructed the rest of the men.

Jon had her precede him in following Beric, and Thoros brought up the rear. The castle was in the very old style, without windows, featuring only arrow slits, through which the frigid wind whistled even past heavy tapestries and furs pinned over the openings. To combat the strong drafts, each room featured a massive fireplace, stacked with firewood and waiting to be lit.

Thoros crouched by the hearth of a larger room, setting fire to the wood, and Beric requested meals to be brought for them. As before in Greywater Watch, Dany waited to lower her hood until Jon indicated he felt the men were trustworthy.

"Ah," said Thoros. Beric only watched, but it was clear her coloring did the speaking for her, and they both knew her identity.

"We are contemplating an alliance," Jon said, "and I wished to give Her Grace proof that the army of the undead were a valid threat."

"Wise," said Beric, sketching a shallow bow to Dany, which she returned with a nod.

The food arrived, plain and simple fare consisting of a tasteless soup of turnip and squirrel as well as a nutty brown bread spread thickly with butter. Dany and Jon ate quickly, feeling fatigue bear down on them.

"I apologize for our lack of conversation," Jon said when they were done. "We are tired, and must be up very early."

"We've had rooms made up," said Beric, and led the way.

Jon was shown to as cozy a chamber as was possible in such an inhospitable place. Through the door as she passed, Dany glimpsed a wide bed heaped with blankets and noted there were even furs tossed on the floor to keep the cold from radiating off the stones.

Her own room was smaller, but no less generously appointed. The bed was narrow, but plenty big enough for her. She knew better, now, than to try to sleep nude, and only shucked her trousers, boots, and over-tunic before crawling under the covers. They had been warmed, she realized when the linen did not brush cool against her bare legs, but that was the last thought she managed before being sucked down into the depths of sleep.

The next morning, they were up before dawn in response to Beric knocking at their doors. Breakfast was a repeat of last night's stew. Dany gave hers to Jon and contented herself with the bread, unable to make herself chew any more of the rubbery squirrel. It was testament to Jon's long practice with the rigors of living in a northern barracks, because he ate that stew with all evidence of gusto.

 _Poor dear,_ she thought, and made a mental note to lavish the best Essosian dishes upon him when they returned to Dragonstone. The chef she'd brought with her from that continent was unparalleled. Jon would never be able to appreciate squirrels with turnips again, not after tasting the spiciness of Pentoshi noodles; the delicate butter-and-wine concoction poured over cockles and scallops until they opened and revealed their bounties; the palate-cleansing sourness of pickled watermelon, followed by goat flank marinated in the juice of pomegranates and blood oranges before being roasted over open flames. And all of it washed down with wine made from berries and pears and honey… her mouth watered at the memory.

"It's time," Jon said to her at last. He stood and held out a hand to her. "Are you ready?"

"I am," she said, and took his hand, letting him raise her from the bench. She turned to their hosts, Beric and Thoros, and nodded to them in gratitude. "Thank you for your kind welcome. And congratulations on your new post, Ser Beric."

His mouth twisted in a wry smile. "Thank you," he said, but didn't seem too honored by the promotion.

Drogon arrived in answer to her request, but before she could approach her beloved child, Thoros stopped her, his hand the barest touch against her elbow.

"A word of advice?"

She nodded, curious.

"Hold on," he said.

Any stared at him. There was knowledge in his eyes; he was a seer of some sort, and he had seen something about _her_. She nodded shortly at him.

"I will."

She was relieved to have Jon wrap himself around her from behind once more; not only for the warmth, but she found herself shivering out of apprehension rather than cold as they went aloft. The barren, ice-scoured shore of Storrold's Point was completely devoid of life. Not person, nor animal, nor bird, nor even tree could be found. She and Jon and Drogon were the only living beings in the area. Aside from the wind whistling past as they flew, there was utter silence. It was profoundly unnatural.

"Easy," Jon murmured in her ear, and began to rub his gloved hands up and down her arms. That was when Dany realized she was shaking, from cold and from fright.

"I'm s-s-sorry," she stammered.

"It's eerie. And the cold doesn't help," he said. "Maybe on the way back, you can sit behind me and keep me warm, because I'm like to be shaking the same way when we head South again."

She could hear the smile in his voice, and appreciated his attempt to lighten the mood. She pressed his hands, returned as they had by that point to her waist, in thanks.

The sun was fully up now, not just a mere promise of light over the horizon, and she could easily see the remains of a settlement at the end of the peninsula. It had been a goodly-sized community, well-places on the shore, with a steep embankment shielding one side and a tall wooden rampart the other. If not through the gate in the rampart, the only approach was from the sea. It was an impressive strategy of defense from what were supposed to be a primitive people, and Dany felt herself interested to speak with Jon's friend, Tormond, he of the undying passion for Lady Brienne.

As they drew closer, she became aware that Drogon was disturbed. He began flying in oblique angles, rather than directly toward Hardhome, as if pushed away by winds stronger than he. She'd never felt anything like it from him before, nor from his brothers. It wasn't fear, exactly, but unease, and an unprecedented amount of hatred. Drogon _hated_ whatever was in Hardhome so much that he was unsure what to do.

She could feel what he wanted, what his instinctual reaction was: to burn the place, the surrounding countryside, the very water around it, until nothing was left but cinders. From the sense of evil pervading the place, she could not blame him. She wanted it reduced to ash, as well.

 _We must fly over that village, my sweet,_ she told Drogon. _I must see what is in it. I_ _'_ _m sorry I am asking you to do it. Please, my love._

Shuddering with loathing, Drogon stopped sidling closer and arrowed straight for it before entering into a steep dive over the rampart.

"Drogon! What are you doing?" Dany shrieked aloud as they almost skimmed the hard-packed snow of Hardhome.

The dragon banked _hard_ , turning so sharply and suddenly that his entire body swung onto its side, and Dany's numb hands could not hold her weight to him. Off she slid, out of Jon's grasp even as he scrabbled to keep hold of her. If not for his knees locked around some of the dragon's spikes, he'd have lost his seat for sure.

"Your Grace!" he cried, but she was falling, air whistling past as she went. "Your— Daenerys!"

And then she was landing, face-down, into a snow bank. It broke much of her fall, thankfully, and when she took a swift inventory of herself there were no broken bones, but her right knee had knocked into a fallen roof-beam and began to throb with pain. Dany got onto her hands and the other, undamaged knee and lurched to her feet. Overhead, Drogon wheeled around and flew past, too high for Jon to leap down.

His face was white as called to her, "How do I get him to land? He's not responding to anything I say."

 _Drogon, come down,_ she thought to her dragon. _I need to get back on._

A crunching, snapping sound came from behind her, and Dany spun around to locate it. At first, there was nothing, but then she saw cracks and fractures in the shell icing over the snow on the far side of Hardhome's former common area. They widened and lengthened, those cracks, and then a _hand_ reached out of one, scrabbling for purchase on the ground. Once the taloned fingers sank in, another hand thrust up, and both heaved until the rest of the body surged from the snow.

Dany felt a wave of heated panic cascade over her, her heart twisting almost brutally in her chest, and then it drained abruptly away to leave only cold. The person who had just dug himself free was no person at all. He couldn't be, because half of his face was rotted away, his jaw hanging loose, and she could see daylight through his ribs _._

 _Its_ _ribs,_ she corrected numbly. _It_ _'_ _s… it's one of the undead that Jon told us about. He tried and tried to tell us, and we didn't listen._ _I_ _didn_ _'_ _t listen._

She was listening now. Another crunch sounded, not far from the first, and another creature hauled itself out of its snowy grave, and then more and more. She stood still, as if carved from marble, trying to keep panic at bay and think of what to do. Overhead, Jon was still trapped aboard Drogon, who seemed half-crazed as he swooped in erratic circles. All around her were fallen-down building and little open space.

 _Drogon can_ _'_ _t land in the middle of all this,_ she thought, and began to back away from the ramshackle scraps that were all that remained of the wildlings' homes.

It appeared that backing away was the exact wrong thing to do, however; content as the wights had seemed to just stand there, facing her— could it be called 'staring' if it had no eyeballs? Could it even be called 'facing' if they had no faces?— but as soon as her foot moved backward, they stirred and began to follow.

"Oh, gods," she moaned, and began to run.

It hurt: her knee, throbbing his pain every time she set her weight on it; her lungs, aching from cold and exertion. She remembered the knife Jon had insisted she bring along, all the way back in Dragonstone, what felt like a year ago. A lifetime had passed since then. A lifetime had passed since she began running, and despite her efforts, they were gaining on her. She could hear them, louder and louder as they drew nearer, and the evil permeating the air making it feel, somehow, even colder. Dany had not thought a person could become this cold, had not thought it possible, but she felt the chill in the very marrow of her bones.

She looked around and up. There was no sign of either Drogon or Jon now, and she found she could not blame them. It was desolate down here, a wasteland of decay and certain death. The relics of those who had lived here, their belongings left where they'd been discarded, were heartbreaking. Dany felt her breath coming faster and faster as she continued to limp away, past the point of panting and well into the range of hyperventilation.

Silvery dots entered the edges of her vision. She swayed on her feet, the pitch of the ground beneath her making it feel as if it were bucking like the deck of a ship in a gale. She stumbled and fell to the ground, but scrambled up quickly to to run again, a sad, uneven gait that seemed to get her nowhere.

And then she realized, to her horror, that she'd gotten turned around, one ruined hovel looking much the same as the next, and had been running the wrong way. Right _toward_ the wights, in fact. She gave a little scream as one reached out a hand and almost grabbed her; she spun around and fled, but all too soon her injured knee was causing her so much pain that she dreaded the need, for each step, to place her weight upon it.

She knew she just wasted time, that every time she looked back slowed her pace, but could not help herself. She couldn't just run and not see where her pursuers were. Dread filled her limbs with ice, until her arms were leaden and she felt she could barely take another step.

 _Go,_ she told herself. _Once more. One more step. There. Now another. You must go. Again. Yes._

The wind was rushing past her ears; no, that was her blood, a loud roar in her head, in her very throat. Had she known fear before? No. Nothing in her life had prepared her for this; not her marriage to Drogo, with her virginal apprehension about the marriage bed, painful and invasive though it had been at first; not confronting the khals after Drogo's death; not eliminating the slavers of Meereen; not even her first flight on Drogon. Nothing.

She'd never felt so powerless, so useless. She was nothing here, completely without value. She had nothing to use or trade. All her beauty, her wealth, her birthright… all were ashes, just ashes.

Skeletal fingers wound in her hair as it flowed away from her in her running, and with a jerk she was thrown to the ground. Dany brandished the knife at the approaching wight, but it was unconcerned. It wasn't afraid of pain or death; she might as well have been waving a feather at it, for the effect it had had. How could you fight something that feared nothing, that stopped for nothing except for your death, or its own?

The wight pounced, and Dany found herself screaming, a high, panicked keening, words started but abandoned halfway through until she was uttering half-formed screeches of terror. The knife was lost, doubtless landing in a snowdrift, but it would not help her, in any case. The wight tore at her hair, tried to rip off her very flesh, but the heavy leather and fur lining of her Northron cloak protected most of her. The sharp point of a naked finger-bone slashed her cheek, catching the edge of her lip, and she screamed again.

This time it was a pitiful thing, her scream, a thin wail like a newborn baby, and that was what Dany was, weak and helpless and shivering, vulnerable, at the mercy of those who pursued her, except that they felt no mercy. They felt nothing at all. That might be the hardest thing of all to understand, to accept: that though they were trying to kill her, they did not actually _want_ her dead. They wanted nothing. Her death, her life, none of it mattered to them. They had no motives, just a compulsion, forced upon them by their king.

 _Kill_.

Dany was exhausted. It felt like she'd been struggling with the thing for hours, though she knew it could only have been a minute or two, no more. Where was Jon? Where was Drogon? Had they deserted her? Why had she not trusted him? Why had she insisted upon seeing these monsters for herself? Oh, she should have listened to Tyrion and Missandei and Varys. Even Jon and Ser Davos had tried to talk her out of it, but no. She had thought her logic unassailable. She had dismissed the counsel of those older, or at least wiser, than herself, and it had led to her death.

The silvery spots were thicker now, and the whistling in her ears was growing stronger. She might as well give up, give in, let go. It would be over quicker. The whistling grew louder. Its pitch lowered, became more like a howl. There was a crash, and suddenly the scrabbling pressure of the wight's hands against her body was gone. The howling was coming closer, it was turning into words, it was Jon's voice, and he was telling her—

Telling her—

"Get _up_ , Dany! Get up _now_! You _must_ get up!"


	14. Chapter 14

Arya had many thoughts after Jon and Daenerys Targaryen left for Hardhome. Foremost among them was her conviction that Cersei had to die, because the dragon queen was too tense about regaining her seven bloody kingdoms to pay proper attention to what Jon was telling her about the White Walkers. Cersei had to go, if for no other reason than to free up the dragon queen's forces to help fight the army of the dead.

Plus, it would be an almost bloodless victory, only a few castle guards and servants done for, and she knew Jon would appreciate that.

And so the next morning, she rose very early, while it was still full dark. She ransacked the kitchen for supplies, packed up her dappled gray with her bedroll and everything else she needed to live rough, and set out for the Kingsroad just as the sun began to rise. She hoped the note she'd left in the solar for Sansa would keep her sister from panicking outright, but doubted it.

 _I will come back,_ she had written in it, and meant it. Nothing would keep her from Winterfell and her family again.

She estimated it would take her a month to get to King's Landing, and thought with great resentment of how quickly Jon and the dragon queen were traversing half the continent— Dragonstone to Hardhome and back again, in six days! Envy curdled her stomach, but she plodded doggedly on.

Before she'd gone a handful of miles, however, she heard the sound of hoofbeats behind her and sat up erect from her slouched position atop the horse. Twisting around in the saddle, she peered behind herself to see a rider fast approaching. She hurried to pull to the side of the road, dismounting and tying the reins to a tree branch.

By the time the rider was close enough for his face to be seen, she had her blades out and ready, but when he pulled up, he and the horse both panting, Arya rolled her eyes and jammed Needle and Bodkin back into their scabbards.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded as Gendry hopped off his lathered mount. "I thought you were smarter than the last time! But you're just as stupid as—"

He kissed her, shutting her up in the most effective way she'd ever experienced. It felt weird and gross, until it didn't, and then she fisted her hands in his tunic and yanked him closer. She had no idea what she was doing so just mimicked him. Apparently she was a good study, because it wasn't long before Gendry moaned into her mouth and she felt something insistent pressing into her belly.

"Urgh," she said, and yanked herself free. "Put that away."

Now it was his turn to roll his eyes. "It goes away on its own. Wouldn't have made an appearance if you hadn't kissed me back." Those vivid blue eyes gleamed at her. "What did you think? Of kissing, that is. Not bad, is it?"

It hadn't been bad, in fact, but now Arya was wondered where he'd learned it. Or rather, from whom he'd learned it. The idea of him practicing with someone else was making her feel stabby.

"What are you doing here?" she repeated. "How did you even know I was gone?"

"Clegane was up early to spar with Lady Brienne," was his answer. "He found the note, took it to Lady Sansa, who came to ask me what I knew about it. Which was _nothing_ ," he added, narrowing his eyes at her. "Wouldn't have killed you to drop me a hint, at least."

"Because then you'd have insisted on coming with me!" Arya exclaimed, and yanked her horse's reins free from the branch.

This was terrible. This was a disaster. Arya was remembering why the Faceless Men always worked alone, why they gave up everything— it was impossible to get anything accomplished with well-meaning friends and family members bumbling about. She climbed into the saddle and clucked her horse into action. Within moments, Gendry had caught up to her and they rode in uneasy silence for an hour or so.

"This is not something I need company for," she told him then. He only quirked an eyebrow at her.

They rode for another hour.

"I'll do better on my own," she informed him. He continued to look unimpressed.

One more hour passed.

"You'll just get in the way," she said. He just shrugged and grinned.

"Dammit, Gendry! You are not taking me seriously! You don't understand what I'm going to do. You don't know what I'm capable of now. You shouldn't be in the middle of it."

"What's the real reason you don't want me along?" he asked her.

"That _is_ the real reason!" she shouted, throwing up her hands.

They rode for ten minutes without speaking, but she could feel his eyes on her the whole time.

"That _is_ the real reason," she repeated angrily.

He just kept staring at her.

When she couldn't take it any longer, she turned to him and snarled, "What?"

"Just say it," he replied. "I want to hear you say it."

"It's dangerous!" Arya exploded. "It's going to be dangerous. It's going to take all my cunning, and even then, it might not work. You're not a bad fighter, but you're not good enough to save yourself if they catch me."

"So?" said Gendry, peering up at the sky. His eyes were bluer than it was. Brighter. It always reminded her of him. The idea of those eyes dimming, of closing forever, made her want to hack something to bits. "What does it matter if they kill me, in the end? I'm just a stupid blacksmith."

"You're not just a stupid blacksmith," Arya said furiously and scrubbed at her damned leaky eyes with her fists. "You're a stupid blacksmith who can forge Valyrian steel. You're the only living son of Robert Baratheon. You're—"

"I'm…?" he prodded.

"You're mine," she shouted. "One of my friends. One of my family. I don't have a lot, so the few I do have are precious. And I l— care about you, and don't want to lose you."

Gendry stared at her for a long time, after she said that.

"You're mine, too," he replied eventually. "I don't want to lose you, either. Do you think it would be any easier for me? Do you think I could possibly stay, safe and sound, in Winterfell while you rode by yourself down the length of Westeros to… try some mad scheme?"

She did not answer. She had no words to use. All she knew was that she was desperately uncomfortable. This was too upsetting. _People_ were too upsetting, when they pushed and prodded and made her _feel_ things.

"Arya," he said, his voice firm. Commanding. "You might not be able to say it, but I can. I'm not ashamed of how I feel about you. I'm proud it's you I love. I'm proud of _you_. This time, we won't be separated. I'm going to follow you, no matter if you go to King's Landing, or Braavos, or anywhere else. I can't make any promises, because I am only a stupid blacksmith, but I'll try not to get in your way. I'll help you however I can. You just let me know what I can do."

"For now, you can shut up!" Her face like it was going to fall off, a burned crisp, from how red and hot it was.

"Alright," Gendry said, easygoing as ever, but then he reached over and pulled her from her horse to his, settling her across his lap before winding his arms around her to grasp the reins once more. Her gray just went alongside as if nothing had happened.

Arya stared at his face, finding in it a determination and a sort of resigned acceptance she'd never seen, or perhaps just never noticed, before.

"There's nothing I can do to change your mind, is there?" she asked at last, slumping against him.

He took her weight easily, and kept his eyes on the road. "Nope."

She sighed. "You'll need to listen to me."

"I will."

"About everything. You can't question my directions. I have to make choices in a split-second, sometimes."

"Yes."

"I might have to leave you at certain places—" she began, but he squeezed his arms around her until she squeaked.

"That, I will not agree to," said Gendry. "I go with you, or you don't go at all."

"There are some things you cannot do!" she protested.

"Be that as it may," he said serenely.

They rode another hour in frustrated silence.

"I can see right up your nose," she said at last.

"I can see into your ear," he replied. "You should clean them better."

"I just can't win, with you," Arya grumbled.

"Why do you have to win? Why do either of us have to win? Why can't it be a draw? If I win, that means you have to lose, and I don't want that, either."

She slumped back again. How had she thought Gendry was stupid? Or simple? There was nothing simple about him, he was the most complicated man she'd ever met. But a good man, too, and for some reason— some awful, wonderful reason— he had decided that he loved her. He was _choosing_ to love her, even insisting upon it.

It was terrifying, and Arya was pretty sure she didn't deserve it. Not after what she had done, and what she had yet to do. He was a decent person. He wasn't like her. She couldn't seem to shake the conviction that eventually, Gendry would become overwhelmed by all the deaths she'd caused. When that day, she wouldn't blame him for leaving her. It was the smart thing to do, in fact.

But until then…

Until then…

She squirmed and twisted around, Gendry agreeably helping her rearrange her limbs until she was sitting astraddle the horse, and then she leaned her entire weight against him.

"Well, fine, I'll have a nap. You can be my back-rest until we make camp for the night, then. And I don't want to hear you complain about it, either. Keep your eyes open and pay attention and wake me up if you see _anyone_. Understand?"

"Yes, my lady," he murmured, his lips close to her ear, and then she felt a light touch to the top of her head, as if he'd kissed it.

She didn't know what else to do, so she fell asleep.

They made good time in traveling South, despite the worsening weather as Westeros descended further into winter. Arya discovered that Gendry made himself a two-handed war hammer to fight with, instead of the more usual sword she had expected. When she asked why, he just said, "I don't know, really. It just felt more comfortable in my hand." They sparred daily, each gaining valuable experience.

Arya was accustomed to blade-fighting, and her ways of mitigating thrusts and slashes was ineffective against the ponderous, sweeping arcs of Gendry's hammer. She looked for opportunities to insert Needle or Bodkin under his arm, since the hammer's weight and momentum would keep his arm up, and thus his side unprotected, for a longer period of time. And avoidance was key; if the hammer managed to contact her, its weight and force would crush her instantly. A hammer blow was not something she could quickly staunch and continue fighting. She'd have no few minutes before blood loss affected her.

As for Gendry, he realized he had to work on not only his agility, to keep the heavy burden of his hammer from making him sluggish, but also his endurance, because it was no more than a few swings into a fight before he found himself tiring. By the time they were leaving the Riverlands for the Crownlands, they'd both improved considerably.

They also reacquainted themselves with each other. Arya couldn't reveal all of herself to him. There were certain things about her past that must remain hidden forever, for Gendry's protection, if not for her own. But he knew, now, that she'd trained as an assassin, that she knew the secrets of poisons and self-disguise, and that he no longer had to worry about her as he had in the past. After she'd knocked him on his arse both during swordplay and even wrestling, he now believed her when she insisted she could take care of herself.

Arya gained a newfound appreciation for his steady character. She had once found him too placid, too accepting, and nowhere near as independent as she'd have liked, but she knew more about herself, now. She was an excitable person, always ready to fight on principle, even if she didn't care what she was fighting about. Gendry was showing her the value of being more calm and circumspect, about thinking things through with an eye toward a final outcome. She might be the type to win a fight, but he was the sort who would ultimately win a war, through perseverance and unshakable faith.

Eventually, finally, they arrived at King's Landing. It was even worse than she recalled it, before she'd gone North with the Night Watch recruits, so long ago. The stench of rotting fish and poor sewer management was stronger, the people more ragged and hollow-eyed, but the worst thing was the giant blackened space where the sept of Baelor had been, now just an ink-dark crater filled with ashes and bone. The city blocks around it were charred and crumbling, too, and there were no signs that they would be rebuilt. Probably Cersei was letting it all stand as a warning of what would befall any who dared thwart her.

Arya relied on Gendry to navigate them to a safe place they could stay. Between the two of them, they had plenty of coin, but didn't want to attract attention. She was sure to look as boyish as possible, and Gendry wore a hat to disguise his face just in case any remembered him as Tobho Mott's apprentice. They found a cheap room near a middling-quality smithy that Gendry ingratiated himself into hiring him, and Arya prowled around the Red Keep, gathering information.

Security was not what it could be, she found; Cersei's arrogance was such that she did not think anyone might dare to infiltrate her castle, it seemed. Arya made speedy inroads with the household staff, working her way from kitchen pot boy to laundress to downstairs maid to Cersei's personal attendant in under a week, and kept herself so unobtrusive, while still helpful enough to still merit her presence, that she was privy to many a private conversation.

Usually, they were between Cersei and Jaime, and consisted of his attempts to counter or at least mitigate her mad plans and plots. She nearly vibrated with excitement over the forces she was sending to White Harbor. She was still heady from her victory over Highgarden and plundering of its wealth and food stores. She was still gloating over her trumping of their brother Tyrion at Casterly Rock.

The last two of which, it appeared to Arya, were the result of Jaime's masterful tactics, not Cersei's, but the queen seemed to think she and her twin were one and the same, inseparable, fused into one monstrous being with too many arms and legs and wreaking havoc upon all the people of Westeros.

Jaime, for his part, seemed miserable. He was miserable as he recounted his victories, miserable as he enumerated the amount of wealth and treasure he'd acquired after killing Olenna Tyrell, miserable as he revealed the old bat had been the mastermind behind the murder of King Joffrey.

Cersei, on the other hand, was radiant. Glowing. Exultant in her victory, and in knowing that her son's death had finally been avenged on its actual culprit.

"I do wish you had made her suffer, though, Jaime," she said, a disappointed moue on her lips, one afternoon after being helped into her evening gown. "As Joffrey suffered."

"You blew up her entire family, Cersei," he replied patiently, though that patience seemed to be fraying a bit around the edges. "Son, granddaughter, grandson. You obliterated her legacy in one strike."

A lavish smile bloomed on Cersei's face. "I did, didn't I?" She tossed back the rest of her wine. "Speaking of legacies… I must go see how our Dornish contingent fares. Come with me, Jaime."

It was not a command.

He fell into step with her, and stopped when she halted at the door, turning to narrow her eyes at where "her attendant" had been fussily folding her discarded clothing before placing it into the linen hamper for laundering.

"You, too," she snapped at Arya. "Don't tell me you've become squeamish."

"Yes, Your Grace," she murmured. "No, Your Grace."


	15. Chapter 15

Dany opened her eyes and found Jon standing over her, his sword unsheathed. His hair was tumbling loose around his face and he was breathing hard. He reached down his free hand, and she grasped it, letting him do most of the work of hauling her up. Once on her feet again, she swayed drunkenly, light-headed. He slung his arm around her waist, drawing her against his body, and she let him support her. Just for a moment. Just until she could feel her arms and legs again.

"I thought… you'd left me…" she gasped. "I thought—"

She stopped, because he was staring at her, incredulous.

"You have to know I'd not leave you," he said. His tone was incredibly offended. "I'd never leave anyone to the wights. Only death would keep me away."

"I'm… I'm sorry." And she was. She had misjudged him, underestimated him. She had done Jon Snow a great disservice. The heart of a hero beat under those shapeless Northron leathers and wools. A _true_ hero, not like the ones sung about in in fanciful romances.

He just shot her a look, his lips compressed. "Call to Drogon. I don't know where he went; I had to jump off him to come after you, when you fell. Then you ran in such a way that there was a group of them between us. I had to kill all of them to get to you."

She looked over and saw a swath of dark rags and tumbled bones trailing across the snow, starting from where she'd fallen off Drogon and ending… right there, where they stood. He'd taken a drop of many feet to the ground; he'd slaughtered a dozen wights, perhaps more, in very little time. To save her. To save her stupid, proud, disbelieving, arrogant hide. Something shifted within her at that moment, something fierce and hot and consuming coming to life that she thought she had burned away with Drogo.

"I'm sorry," she repeated. "Thank you."

He shot her another amazed glance. She supposed it was an odd time for manners. "Call him," was all he said, his gaze everywhere at once, alert for another attack.

 _Drogon,_ she thought. _Drogon, my love, please come to us._ _Please_ _come here and get us._

More wights burst from the snow. Dany moaned in dismay. Jon shoved her behind him, his stance supple and ready.

"Stand against me. Tell me if any come at us from your direction. Back toward the water. If Drogon will not come, we can jump into the sea. They won't cross moving water."

"The sea?" Trepidation rippled over her. Were they not cold enough? They'd die in minutes, soaked in icy seawater. But it seemed a better death than being torn apart by the undead.

She had a horrifying idea: if Jon could not fight them all off, if the wights killed them, would they become soldiers in the Night King's army as well? She imagined them as undead soldiers, lurching forward in obeisance to an unseen master's commands to kill, flesh rotting from bone, empty sockets seeing nothing, and felt a terror that pierced her to the core.

The newest wights reached them, and Jon began to fight. His movements were fluid, confident, made with an economy of motion and a nimbleness more suited to the dance floor than the battlefield. Although, Dany reconsidered, he could be graceless when occasion called for it, as proven by how he viciously hacked at one particularly persistent wight who tried to reach past Jon to get to her.

They kept inching backward toward the water. Dany stumbled over something on the ground, and looked down to find a discarded stave. It was not an edged weapon, but better than nothing, so she snatched it up, feeling better, more ready and prepared. Jon's presence bolstered her, too, and when more wights exploded from the snow, this time her fear was manageable, not the untameable beast that had almost defeated her.

"More behind you," she told him. His glance over his shoulder at their newest threats was despairing. Dany knew she had to help him. No man, even one as proficient as Jon, could battle numerous foes endlessly. She began to swing the stave at the closest of the wights, and got in a lucky hit, as it knocked its skull right off its neck. The rest of the body still pressed after them, but she grasped the end of the stave and just whacked at the creature until it fell apart, unable to hold itself together against the force of her blows and fell to the ground in pieces.

"Good," said Jon. He'd already moved on to another wight, but spared a half-second to glance with approval at her. It warmed her like no fire could.

 _I_ _'_ _m not a burden,_ she thought, relief a giddy trickle of heat down her spine. _I can help._

"Keep calling Drogon," he said.

And so she did. In her head, aloud, between swings of her stave against any wight she could reach, she cried out her dragon's name.

A scream, like something Drogon would emit, but different somehow, sounded from over the ridge behind the deserted village, and the telltale crackle of dragonflame sounded in the distance.

"That's where they came from before, when they attacked the first time," panted Jon. He craned his head to see over the last few wights remaining, past the ruin of the wall that had protected Hardhome. "Do you see anyone on top of the cliff?"

Dany peered in that direction, but it was tough going, her attention fracturing each time she had to swing the stave at a wight. It seemed as if the mists clustering at the top of the cliff were parting with the onslaught of Drogon's fire, and she could see there were dark shapes ranged along the ridge, now revealed. They looked like men on horseback, but there was a bizarre stillness to them. Not only to the men themselves, but to their mounts. Bored with standing still, most horses would shift, toss their manes, flick their tails. But the horses on the cliff were motionless, as if carved from…

 _Ice,_ she thought. The horses were wights, too.

"I didn't know they could possess animals!" she exclaimed.

"Anything," he replied. "They can possess any living creature. I've seen them riding bears, mammoths… one of the wildlings insisted he saw one riding a direwolf."

 _They spared nothing and no one._ Shivers took Dany again, frigid air sneaking cruel fingers under her cloak and tunics to chill the sweat on her skin.

The scream came again, and suddenly Drogon shot into the air over Hardhome from behind the ridge. Flapping furiously to maintain his altitude, he screamed a third time, spitting a gout of flame back the way he'd come. There was a moment of excruciating silence, as if all Dany's senses had halted at once, and then came an ear-splitting tinkle of breaking glass, the shapes on the edge of the cliff shattering, exploding into shards that rained down around them.

Jon threw Dany to the ground and covered her with his own body. He tucked her head into his chest, his face against her neck, and waited until the sound of ice splinters plunging to the ground ceased. Every few seconds, he'd grunt, as if struck. Dany clung to him, inhaling the scent of his sweat, feeling the frantic pace of his heart against her breast.

Wingbeats sounded overhead, and Jon clambered off Dany, pulling her up as he stared skyward. Drogon hovered above them, shooting strategic jets of fire at any wights foolish enough keep pursuing them.

 _Drogon, down,_ Dany pleaded. _Come down so we may mount you._

He landed very close to them, and she almost fell over from the force of it, but Jon grabbed her elbow and practically tossed her up onto her dragon. His sword was moving again, holding off the wights who spawned away from Drogon's fire.

"I'm on," she called to him breathlessly once she was safely on Drogon's neck. She reached down a hand to help him up. "Come, Jon!"

He backed closer while continuing to slice and hack at the last wight. He grabbed her hand and leaped up at last, dropping heavily behind her and shoving her onto Drogon's spikes with the roughness of his actions, but she didn't care. He was safe. They were safe. _If_ she could get Drogon to fly.

" _Valahd_ ," she shouted. Still more wights were springing up from the snow, a never-ending army consisting of all who had been cut down the last time Jon had been in Hardhome.

Drogon began to run… right into the heart of the oncoming masses of wights.

"Drogon, no! Away from them, my love! Away!" she tried to scream, but between his lurching gait and the pressure of Jon jammed so closely against her it came out barely audible. Jon was muttering in her ear, more to himself than to her, words she couldn't make out but which sounded unhappy. She went back to mental commands, begging her dragon to head in another direction.

Still Drogon ran into the thick of them, heedless to the army of undead flocking around them, merely crushing wight after wight underfoot and shaking off any who tried to cling to his wings. A few were able to grab at their legs but Jon had a dagger out and was stabbing and slashing them away before they could do more than tear at their trousers.

Finally, blessedly, Drogon was able to get himself aloft, and after a hard bank to the left, during which Dany clutched at his spikes and Jon clutched at her, they were arcing high over the Bay of Seals.

"Oh, thank the gods," Dany found herself saying, over and over. "Thank the gods, thank the gods."

Behind her, Jon went suddenly, shockingly slack against her, his face buried against her hair.

"Jon?" she asked, elbowing him on first one side, then the other, to jolt him. "Are you hurt?"

He gave a short laugh. "Relieved. I can't… it seems impossible that we survived it. That was intense." He paused. "Do you mind if I… rest against you? Just until we reach Eastwatch. I feel all out of strength, just now."

She knew how he felt, because her own limbs felt rubbery as well. It was pure muscle memory that kept her holding onto Drogon's spikes.

"Please do," she therefore said. "Just be sure you keep holding on."

"I will," he mumbled, and then there was the full weight of him against her back. She tried to keep them both upright, but she also was exhausted, her arms feeling as limp as Pentoshi noodles.

All too soon she was leaning forward herself, draped over Drogon's neck, with Jon collapsed over her. She did not sleep, nor did he, but they rested. She felt safe, protected, and the emotion that had sparked to life, when he had come to her rescue, flamed again. She threaded her gloved fingers with his, where they clasped her waist, and she held him against her as tightly as she could manage.

It was almost an hour before they reached Eastwatch. Drogon's occupants were fully unaware of their own arrival, despite the customary rough landing, until the dragon screeched, stirring them from their stupor.

"Your Grace!" called a voice. "And… Your Other Grace!"

Dany blinked, pushing herself up as best she could with Jon's weight pressing her down. "Ah," she said. "We're here."

"Whuh…?" said Jon.

"Your Graces!" called the voice again.

"Ser B-Beric?" Jon muttered. His hands were all over her as he tried up push himself up, but Dany was too tired to care.

"We would come fetch you, but we can't get close to the dragon," said Ser Beric. "If you can get down, and the dragon leaves, we will come get you."

"Yes," replied Jon, sounding far more optimistic about the premise than Dany felt.

She could feel his arms trembling as he tried to support himself, but he got as far as swinging one leg over Drogon's spine before gravity conquered him and he fell.

"You… alright?" slurred Dany, trying to look past Drogon's wing at him. He had landed, fortunately, in a snow drift.

"Now you," Jon said. "Just fall off. I'll catch you."

She was doubtful he could, but it was a better idea than her trying to lower herself with her useless noodle arms, so she too swung her leg over before releasing her dragon's spikes. There was a breathless moment where she was airborne, reminding her in a horrible way of how she'd fallen from Drogon at Hardhome, but then she landed on Jon.

"Ooof," he said, his arms coming around her, and she relaxed onto him, weak from relief.

Drogon ambled off, presumably to find a snack, or perhaps take a nap. He, at least, was unphased by the events of the day. It clearly took more to bother a dragon than it did a mere human.

"Thank you, my love," she said to him.

"Whuh?" said Jon. She turned her head and found his face very close to hers. His brow was furrowed with confusion, but his eyes were as intense as always, though heavy-lidded with fatigue.

"I… was thanking Drogon," she whispered, feeling bizarrely, unaccountably shy.

"Of course you were," Jon said quickly, angling his head away, but there was a faint tinge of pink on his cheeks that Dany did not think was there because of the cold. She felt her own face warming, and other things besides, but then kind hands were lifting her off of him.

"Your Grace," said Thoros, taking her easily into his arms. "I thought I told you to hold on."

She somehow found the strength to smile, just a little. "I tried."

"Are you well? Injured? Tell me what you need."

"I am very tired. We have had a terrible ordeal. My knee is twisted. I could kill for a hot drink."

That last part made him laugh. "We can fix that," he said, "no killing necessary."

Dany craned her neck, trying to see what has happening to Jon.

"Beric and the others have got him, no need to worry," Thoros told her.

"I wasn't worried," she said, but sounded unconvincing even to herself. Judging by the skeptical expression on his face, he was not convinced, either.

He carried her up the stairs and soon laid her on a very large bed, far larger than she had had the night before. She realized she was in Jon's room.

"I will get you your hot drink," Thoros said, "and some ointment for your knee. There is no maester here, so you will have to make do with us."

She waved her hand, hoping it looked queenly, but fearing it was far too limp to be anything more than bedraggled. The room was warm, the bed soft, and her eyelids sank shut.


	16. Chapter 16

Dany jolted awake, just minutes later, when the bed moved. She struggled to sit up as Beric and another of the Brotherhood lowered Jon to the furs beside her.

"It'll be easier to treat both your injuries at the same time," Beric explained. "My apologies, Your Grace."

"Of course," she murmured. "It's fine."

"What complaints have you, Your Grace?" asked Beric, and Dany opened her mouth to answer until she realized he'd been talking to Jon that time.

"I think I took a shard in the side," Jon said, shifting with a groan. "Probably bruises all over my back. Scratches on my face and neck. Slash on the arm. Left arm," he clarified.

Beric began to help Jon off with his cloak, then his studded leather hauberk, and finally with his tunics, to Dany's alarm, but as each inch of pale, muscled flesh was revealed, she could not make herself look away.

There was a gash across his left bicep, and he sucked in a startled breath as his sleeve was pulled free of it, ripping the crusted blood that had fused the linen to the wound. Thoros returned with a small wooden chest, which he placed on the foot of the bed and opened, extracting various pots and bottles.

"Your Grace," he said, coming to stand by her side of the bed, startling Dany, who'd been watching Jon closely. Thoros handed her a little clay pot with a cork stopper. "This is liniment for your leg. Would you like me to apply it for you?"

"No, thank you, Ser Thoros," she demurred politely. "I will use it myself, later."

"Of course." He returned to the chest and pulled out a squat bottle of brown glass, some clean rags, and another small pot, passing them to Beric before leaving the room.

Jon, by this time, had rolled over to face Dany so that Beric could examine his left side and back for evidence of piercing shards. Dany had sat up, but not shifted away, with the result that Jon was practically in her lap. Beric began to swab at the shallow puncture he'd found with the foul-smelling brew from the bottle and Jon hissed, so Dany reached out and stroked her hand over his tangled curls.

"You were very brave," she murmured. "The bravest I've ever seen. I'm sorry I did not believe. I should have, but I didn't know you yet. I didn't trust you yet."

"You know me now?" he asked, staring up at her. "You trust me now?"

"I do," she confirmed, meeting his gaze levelly with her own. "I apologize for my lack of faith in you."

His mouth curled, just a little, just on one side. "You had no reason to trust me. I was just some up-jumped bastard trying to take one of your kingdoms away."

"And now what are you?" she teased. "Going to bend the knee after all, are you?"

He huffed out a laugh, then hissed again as Beric began smoothing salve over the puncture. "The answer is still no."

Dany tsked, but it, too, was teasing. Now that they were out of danger and relatively unscathed, she felt wonderfully light. Relief flowed through her in time with her heartbeat.

"You're a stubborn man, Jon Snow."

"You don't know the half of it."

"I think I know at least half," she said. "You could easily have left me there. It would have made your life far less difficult."

His easy demeanor switched to the same outraged irritation he'd displayed in Hardhome when she'd said it earlier, and he opened his mouth to speak, but she forestalled him.

"I know you would not. I know that _now_. I am only saying that you _could_ have. Many men would have. Most kings would have. But not you."

She smiled down at him, and he must have seen something in her face, because the irritation faded away and he smiled back, that sweet smile that made Dany feel like she were melting, made only of soft candle wax, pooling at the base of a flame.

Jon hissed one last time as Beric bandaged him. "That's you done, then," he said, and then looked at Dany. "Your Grace, we should tend that cut."

She started, surprised and puzzled. Jon, sitting up, lifted a finger to trace along her cheek before stopping at her mouth, and it was her turn to hiss.

"Forgot you had that, eh?" He quirked a little grin at her. "I forget about the scratches, too." He held out his hand to Beric for the pot of salve. "I'd like a hot drink as well, Ser Beric, if you wouldn't mind."

"Of course, Your Grace," the other man said. To his credit, he didn't blink his sole remaining eye at being evicted from the room so Jon and Dany could be alone, even though it was patently obvious.

Her belly fluttered at the way he was staring at her so intently. _Those dark eyes of his were weapons of a different sort,_ she thought, _but just as deadly._

"Here," Jon said, one finger dragging through the contents of the pot, "tilt your face this way, toward the light."

Dany shifted to face him better, angling herself as directed, and unashamedly studied him as he stroked the salve over the scratch on her cheek. She examined the scar that had come dangerously close to his left eye, the thick straight eyebrows, the dark beard. She studied the slightly crooked nose, and wondered when and how he had broken it.

Mostly, though, she looked at his mouth, at his soft, full, pink lips, and wished he would kiss her. The heat of his body, unhampered now that his chest was bared, rose around them, and with it came the scent of him, something like clean water and salt and pine trees. It was the smell of winter, she realized; the smell of snow.

She knew, in that second, that she would always associate it with him, just as she knew that this was a singular moment. She'd had a number of them. She knew their importance. She knew that their fates hung in the balance of what they did just then, of what they said. A single word could make or break them.

Jon smoothed salve over the long scratch where the wight had caught her, his fingertip slick and warm against the sensitive flesh. She reflexively ran her tongue over her lip and found the salve was herbal, almost spicy.

"Does it taste bad?" he asked.

"Taste it yourself," she replied, thinking he'd lick a bit off his finger, but instead he bent his head and pressed his mouth against hers. Softly, gently, he rubbed his lips against hers before parting them. Then he sucked her lip the slightest bit into his mouth and darted his tongue over it. She gasped, shocked at how good it felt.

Jon brought his hand up to cup her head and slanted his mouth over hers, using his lips to open hers for his kiss. Dany whimpered as heat flashed through her, an instant fire, making her belly clench and her thigh muscles tighten. She lifted her hands to his bare shoulders, the heat pouring from him scalding her palms as she ran them up his neck. She moved her tongue against his, flicking it against his palate, and it was his turn to make a soft noise in his throat.

"Jon," she sighed against his lips, and threaded her fingers into his hair.

He deepened the kiss, coaxing it into into a bonfire that raged between them. She urged him to lay back, then draped herself over his chest, her hair falling around them like a platinum web.

"Am I hurting you?" she murmured into the kiss. "I don't want to make your injury worse."

"What injury?" he said, and ran his hands up her back to press her closer, meshing their mouths together even more securely.

Dany did not know how long they lay there, kissing and kissing and kissing. Jon never pressed her for more, never let his hands wander below her waist or over her front. He touched her face, her hair, her ears and throat and shoulders, but never anywhere else. His hands moved over her almost reverently, like he had been granted access to a priceless piece of art and wanted to gorge himself on the sensation of exploring it before he had to give it back.

She felt drunk on him, on his scent and feel and taste. His skin was not smooth, marked as it was with many scars, but he felt finer to her than the unblemished flesh of any fine lord who stayed safe at home while his men died for his sake. Her fingers found one scar in particular, a ridge shaped like a half-moon right over his heart.

"This is what Ser Davos meant," she said against his kiss-swollen lips. "That you took a knife to the heart for your people."

"Yes. All the big scars on my chest were from that night. Any of them could have killed me, but I think it was that one— the one Olly gave me— that did it."

She didn't know who that was, but clearly his betrayal was what had cut Jon deeper than the blade Olly had wielded.

Dany bent her head and touched her mouth to the half-moon scar, trailing her lips over it from point to point.

"I can feel it disappearing," he said, and she raised her head, startled, to see his teasing smile.

"If I could make it disappear, I would," she told him seriously, and his smile faded to just a faint curve of the lips, fond and knowing. He stroked a lock of hair from her back to behind her ear.

"What is this?" he asked quietly. "What are we doing?"

She blinked at him. "Do you not— is it bad? Do you not like it?" She began to scoot away from him, suddenly filled with doubt and terribly, awfully embarrassed. Had she misread him so badly? Had she seen attraction in him where there was none? Was she alone in feeling this pull, this magnetism drawing her toward him? She felt very inexperienced, stupidly so, and very young.

Jon sat up with a wince. "I liked it. I _loved_ it. It was good. Better than good. Come back here." He reached for her, and she almost flung herself back into his arms, eager to be reassured. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you doubt. I just… something has grown between us. I need to know what it is, before we move ahead with it, because I think…"

He paused and then lay back again, pulling her with him until she lay across his chest like before. Dany stacked her hands on his chest and propped her chin on them, looking at him.

"What do you think?" she prompted when he did not speak for a few seconds.

"I think it has the power to be something big. Something that would shake all of Westeros, if we're not careful, because of who we are, and what we have depending on us. I have a kingdom. You'll have six of them, plus everything back in Essos."

Dany frowned, about to argue about exactly whose kingdom the North happened to be, but he touched her mouth with a gentle finger, hushing her.

"There's too much at stake for us to enter into something without… some level of… affection," Jon said haltingly. "I'm not a man who jumps from one woman's bed to another. I'm not built that way. And I can't tell what you're thinking, what you think of me. So if you're just looking for some amusement, or to sway me to your side, believing I'll be easier to handle if I'm under your thumb, because I want you, I beg you not to."

She could have been insulted, but he was not entirely wrong. She'd considered seducing him, even before she'd met him, in case he might be the type of man who could be led around by his cock. It would have been worth a try, or so she had thought, before their first conversation in Dragonstone's throne room. Before she had realized that this was no regular man, and none of the typical blandishments or seductions or persuasions would move him.

"I want neither of those things," she told him. "There's no point to trying to seduce you into giving me my way, since you won't do it. And I, too, am not a person who easily moves from bed to bed. I've been with two men; one I came to love, and the other I… liked, but could not trust, though he insisted he loved me. He was a mercenary. There was too much proof that he was for sale at the right price. If I am with another man, it must be one I can trust. One I can believe cares for me, one who does not want me for my looks or my wealth or my power, or just to be able to brag that he fucked the queen."

Jon's eyes flickered at her crudeness, but all he said was, "I decided long ago I would only be with a woman I loved, because I saw what my father's infidelity— with me as the result— did to his wife. How it hurt her. He loved her, too, so the bed sport he enjoyed with my mother was empty. I was created not out of love, not like his other children with Lady Stark, nor even out of duty. From nothing more than a passing fancy for a barmaid or farm girl. It seems so… pointless.

"I've only bedded one woman. I loved her. She died. I've been so busy fighting, and dying, and fighting some more, that I've had neither opportunity nor impulse to find another. You…"

He trailed off, flashing her a shy look as he looked away. "I wasn't prepared for you. Any part of you."

She smirked, amused. "What parts of me have thrown you the most?"

"Your strength. Your vision. Your resilience. Your ruthlessness… tempered by your compassion. Your capacity for humility." He shot her a faint grin. "Even if you don't often express any."

Dany faked a pout. "I can be very humble, when the need arises." She touched a kiss to his scar again. "What else?"

"Your sly sense of humor. Your intelligence. Your cunning. Your patience. You are so much more complex than I had imagined. I'd thought you just a spoiled despot who was sulking her kingdoms had been taken from her, as if they were toys stolen by another child."

"You were supposed to be an unwashed barbarian," she replied. "I was not prepared for you, either, but you've surprised me at every turn."

"I'm a simple Northron lad, I am," he replied, with an exaggerated accent.

"Hardly," she laughed. "You're so much more."

"More of what? How much more?"

"More of everything. All of it."

"That's too much. I can't be everything."

"You are to me."

They stared at each other for a long, breathless moment.

"I didn't mean to say that," Dany muttered.

"But you did say it." He licked his lips… nervously. "Did you mean it? Because it sounds…"

"Like what?"

"Like something… serious. Something deep and… frightening."

"It _is_ serious and deep and frightening. I'm terrified, no small part in due to how quickly it has happened. Sometimes I feel like I've entered a battle with no weapon or armor, and you smote me right in the heart, and now I'm laying here bleeding, waiting for you to…"

"To what?"

"I don't know. Just waiting for you."

Dany rolled off his chest to flop onto her back, and stared up at the smoke-blackened ceiling.

"I don't have any defenses against you, Jon Snow. I can't find any excuse I can use to dislike you. You are all the things I admire in a man, all the things I've always felt a man should be. Strong, honest, trustworthy, dedicated, hard-working, modest, intelligent, gentle, loving, devoted." She turned her head on the pillow to face him. "And the fact that you look like a sad angel come down from the heavens doesn't hurt, either. How am I supposed to cope with all that? How am I supposed to turn away from all of that?"

He was blushing fiercely. "What if I don't want you to turn away from it?"

"Then I won't. But, Jon, be aware…" Dany began, and sat up, propping herself on one hand. "Dragons don't give up their treasure without a fight. If you and I decide to… do something… with what is between us… I mean for it to be permanent. And we must think about what that means. For the North, for all of the kingdoms."

Jon propped himself up, too, on his elbow. "Dany," he said, and she loved the sound of her name in his soft, hoarse voice. "Let's… let's move slowly. Let's make sure we know what we want, and where we want it to go. It's very soon, too soon, to make decisions that will affect the rest of our lives." He shot her a grin, trying to leaven the moment. "I might yet reveal some habit that makes you want to have Drogon roast me."

"I might reveal some habit that makes you long to pitch me over the Wall to the Night King," she joked back.

"Hm," he said, "Doubtful, since I am liking everything I know about you so far." He laughed a little. "I even like how quick you are to temper."

"I'm very even-tempered," she sniffed. "Very hard to rile, very controlled and you—"

Jon leaned up and kissed her, a quick, hard buss that had her scratched lip smarting, but she said nothing. She'd take all his kisses, even the ones that hurt.

"You're not," he said, "but I like you anyway."


	17. Chapter 17

Arya followed the twins down corridor and stair, across hall and cellar, grimacing as the air become more close and stale the further underground the progressed. Finally, they found themselves at the entrance of the dungeons. Occupancy appeared at a premium, for every cell was full to brimming with prisoners and their waste products, to Arya's chagrin. She breathed through her mouth as discreetly as she could manage, and picked her way with care through the runnels of urine that trickled from various of the cells to soil the narrow passageway.

Cersei didn't even seem to notice the puddles, however, sailing right over and through them, unconcerned about the state of her hems and shoes. As they approached the very last cell, in the deepest corner of the dungeon, Arya thought it was odd that, unlike the unremitting gloom of the rest of the godsforsaken place, it was surrounded by torches and almost as brightly-lit as the daylight outside.

She stayed carefully behind Cersei, as she must due to her station as the queen's servant, and made herself resist the urge to crane her neck to see what was within. When the guard swung open the gate and Cersei stepped inside, Arya had a perfect view, and immediately wished she didn't.

A dark-haired woman, once beautiful but now ravaged by grief and hardship, huddled against a stone wall, her blank eyes fixed on the corpse of what had used to be a girl. The girl's face had been gnawed away by rats, and then the maggots had come. The entire scene was one of writhing putrefaction. Jaime and Arya shared a glance of disbelief and shock that transcended the boundaries of class, for a moment being just equal fellow witnesses of such a scene.

"Your daughter's looking lovely today, is she not, Ellaria?" Cersei sang as she gazed around the cell in approval at the many blazing torches, patting one of the rusting sconces holding them aloft. "And you don't have to miss a moment of your time with her."

Ellaria did not react; it was as if she were alone, she and her dead child. Jaime was transfixed with horror, his chest rising and falling quickly as he panted, alarmed.

"Cersei," he breathed. "This is… this is wrong."

"She killed our daughter, Jaime," she replied, the satisfaction on her face replaced by rage in the span of a heartbeat. "So I have killed hers."

"But she did not force you watch Myrcella… rot," he replied hoarsely. "This is beyond cruel, Cersei. This is sick."

"Myrcella died in your arms, Jaime," snapped Cersei. "And you want me to be merciful? To the whore who stole one of our precious children from us? Our only daughter?" She glanced down at the shattered woman crumpled on the hard stones, the rags she wore dark and sticky with her own filth. "No, this is the least that should happen to her. There's still more to come, in fact. I have plans for her with Ser Robert Strong. After I was crowned, he proved himself quite adept at expressing my appreciation of Septa Unella's… kind treatment of me."

She looked back at her brother and grinned before sweeping out of the cell.

Arya could see the last of the scales fall from Jaime's eyes, realizing that his sister had finally descended to a place from which he could no longer lift her up. She waited for him to leave, intending to end the unfortunate Ellaria's life— she was sure she had at least one poisoned dart on her somewhere— once his back was turned.

But Jaime stepped into the cell, withdrawing a dagger, and slit the woman's throat in one swift move. Ellaria looked up at him, for the first time seeming aware of her surroundings, and in her eyes was gratitude before she slumped back, dead.

When Jaime stood from his crouch, it was to glance at the guard, and then Arya.

"I saw nothing," she said.

"Nor I, my lord," whispered the guard. He looked quite bad, sweat gleaming on his face and his face tinged green, and clearly had only been there under strict duress. Jaime seemed satisfied, nodding to them both, and followed in his sister's steps. Arya hastened after him. The clang of the cell by the relieved guard echoed in the dungeons like the tolling of a bell.

Cersei's eyes flashed and she slapped Arya's hands away from where she was fumbling to thread the slender wires of long jeweled earrings through the tiny piercings.

"Why are you so slow and clumsy today?"

 _Why can_ _'_ _t you put your own sodding earrings in?_ Arya thought. "I'm sorry, Your Grace," she said instead.

Cersei made short work of it instead, and soon stood admiring herself in the looking glass, tilting her head this way and that to make the emerald drops sway and catch the late afternoon light.

"You've been different lately, Milenda," the queen commented, meeting Arya's eyes in the reflection. "Not only clumsy, but less attentive overall. You used to be proud to serve me; you held your head high and used your rank to cow the rest of the servants. But now you cast your eyes down, and I hear tales of you being kind to the other help."

Arya froze. She'd thought she was doing rather well at imitating the haughty pretensions of the attendant. _Evidently not._ She'd have to be more fastidious next time. Not knowing the right way to reply, she kept her mouth shut.

"And it's all since we went to the dungeons, isn't it?" Cersei purred. "Did you see a side of your queen that shocked you?"

There was no good answer there. To say 'no' was hardly a flattering opinion, and to say 'yes' made her seem naive. She decided to be honest.

"Yes, Your Grace." For she _was_ shocked; Arya would not have thought even Cersei capable of such a thing as she'd seen in the dungeon. This could not end well, and her sole thought was to get out of the room so she could disappear. "Please forgive me, Your Grace."

Cersei stared at her, her famous green eyes as cold and hard as the gems in those earrings. Arya cast down her gaze, hoping she was putting enough deference and obsequience into her posture, and stood completely still. _I am a rock,_ she thought. _I am a stone._

Finally Cersei relented, her posture relaxing, and her mouth curved in a catlike smile. "It's fine," she said at last, with a wave of the hand. "I'm done with you for now. Find Ser Jaime and tell him to attend me."

Arya carefully silently released the breath she'd been holding. "Yes, Your Grace." She bobbed a curtsy, and left the room at an appropriately sedate pace so that the guards standing outside the chamber would not suspect anything. Once around the corner, she began to run.

It took her a while to locate Jaime, but he was in the private royal dining room, staring into a tiny crystal glass of ruby-colored cordial. As the sun streamed through the window and hit the faceted crystal, glinting rainbows danced around the room. Arya paused on the threshold, studying him. He looked sad, weary, conflicted, and a minute part of her pitied him. She knew for a fact that he was the one who had sent the warning to Brienne— she'd snuck into the sworn shield's room and searched until she'd located the scrap of parchment with its treasonous warning, all signed with a flourished J, in the most atrocious handwriting, as if written by a man who lacked his dominant hand.

 _Poor Brienne,_ she thought. Was there ever such an impossible love?

Footsteps from the staircase nearby drew her attention, and she'd have entered the room to pass on Cersei's message to Jaime, except…

It was the guards from Cersei's door, and they were discussing _her_.

"What do you suppose Milenda did to anger the crazy bitch?" one was asking in a low voice.

"Don't know," whispered the other. "Don't care. Don't want to get the same treatment myself, if the queen thinks we didn't do the job she gave us."

"Aye," said the first. "Best we find her and slit her throat before she gets too far."

Arya ducked under the stairs, folding herself into the small garderobe tucked underneath. She peeled off the attendant's face, then tore off her gown and stuffed it down the loo. She wore rough trousers and boots beneath, as always, with Bodkin strapped to her thigh, and hurriedly untied the shirt she always fastened around her waist. Tugging it over her head, when her face popped free of the fabric, it was that of a stable boy from Braavos, unremarkable in every way.

Opening the door, she listened carefully.

"Your pardon, my lord," one of the guards was saying. "Have you seen Milenda?"

"Milenda?" repeated Jaime, clearly not knowing who that was.

"Her Grace's personal attendant, my lord. She has ordered us to… find her."

There was a brief pause before Jaime spoke. "To what end?"

There was a metallic rattle: the guard shifting, doubtless uncomfortable before Jaime's piercing regard.

"Her Grace said she can't have any servants who don't think well of her. That she can't trust anyone who doesn't respect her. We…" He stopped, swallowed audibly. "We thought that meant she wants us to kill her."

Another pause. "I see."

"So if you haven't seen her, my lord, we'll be off to look. We'd like to get the job done before we see Her Grace again. It wouldn't do to return to her without having finished it as she has commanded."

"Of course it wouldn't," Jaime murmured. "Yes, go on."

Arya ducked back into the garderobe, the door panel open the merest sliver so she could watch the guards pass by and out of sight, their footsteps and voices fading with distance. Then she waited for several minutes, to make sure Jaime's attention had calmed and, hopefully, become lax once more. She dared a glance into the dining chamber before she went, though, and he was once against staring into the cordial glass, twirling the stem between his forefinger and thumb.

Then he threw it with sudden violence against the wall, where it shattered and sent splinters of crystal everywhere. A reddish splash on the fragile hand-painted wallpaper lingered like a blood stain.

Arya managed not to gasp, nor even to move, but she felt the shock, and quickly moved from her hiding place to slip around the corner, down the hall to the servant's door. Once behind it, she breathed a little easier. Relaxing— just a little— she made her way out of the keep and down into King's Landing's wending streets. It was the work of minutes to walk to the shabby room she was sharing with Gendry. She peeled off the stable boy's face and let out a sigh.

"Everything alright?" Gendry asked, appearing at the top of the stairs still in his apron. "I saw you come back. You look tense."

She shot him a wild grin. "Cersei just sent her guards to kill me," she said.

"She became suspicious of her maid?" He leaned against the door jamb, crossing both arms and ankles as he looked her over, possibly for injuries, definitely because he wanted her.

Arya shoved that last idea out of her mind for the moment.

"I don't think she had suspicions of who I really was," she said, "just that a discontented servant is an easily corrupted servant." She shrugged. "She's not wrong."

He hummed in agreement. "So now that disguise is gone. What will you do next?"

"I'll become yet another servant," she said. Arya smoothed her hand over her face, and suddenly was another woman.

"I hate when you do that," Gendry muttered.

"Just jealous," she muttered back, dodging him when he reached out to grab her, but letting him catch her when he tried again. "Getting me all sweaty," she pretended to complain. All those gleaming muscles loomed just an inch from her nose. He smelled of salt and leather. She wanted to lick him.

"Be careful, Arry." He leaned down, as if to kiss her, but then stopped and pulled back with a disturbed expression. He never kissed her when she wore another's face. Couldn't blame him, really.

"Always," she replied, and shrugged free of his grasp. "Go finish your work from the day. I'll go fetch us supper."

After he left, Arya sat the room's sole chair and stared out the window. The sun had gone, its final glow almost hidden behind the horizon, and the world was illuminated by that odd colorless gleam between sunset and twilight. She thought of Jaime, and his defeated posture. She thought of Brienne, and what could drive such a woman to love such a man.

There had to be more to him, something that would appeal to a creature of such principle and honor. Brienne was one of the most upright, decent people Arya had ever met. She was not one to be fooled by pretty faces, and even if he were twenty years Arya's senior, she thought his face very pretty indeed. But Brienne would not have been fooled by that. There had to be substance below the gilding, something solid enough to rest her heart on.

Arya herself had observed enough of him in the past week of serving the queen to know that there was decency in him, still. She thought that that decency, that sense of loyalty, that familial affection, was what kept him by Cersei's side, because it couldn't be anything else, could it? Arya knew that they had been lovers. Might still be lovers, in fact. That he had fathered all three of his twin's children.

But could a man— could _that_ man— still want Cersei, now, after all he knew she had done? He had seemed genuinely sickened by her treatment of Ellaria Sand and her daughter, and to hear of the septa's torture at the hands of Cersei's unnatural monster. The expression on his face, the sorrow deepening the grooves across his forehead and bracing his mouth, had been that of a man teetering on the edge of his control.

Men were at their most vulnerable then. That meant he could be reached. She wondered if she dared reveal herself to him. Could he be an ally? Would he help her to depose his sister?

No. It was too early. The Lannister fidelity had bent, was moth-eaten and dog-eared and riddled with holes, but it had not yet broken.

Arya could bide her time.

"Well?" Cersei demanded the next morning. "Is it done?"

"It is, Your Grace," lied the guard.

"What did you do with her body?"

"Threw it in the bay closest to Flea Bottom, Your Grace. With any luck, if she's found, it'll look as if she was set upon by footpads."

"Excellent." Seated before her vanity, Cersei turned back to her reflection and smiled at what she saw. "You are dismissed."

Once they'd left her room, she glanced back at her new attendant.

"Let that be a lesson to you, my dear," she said lightly, and laughed. "Never displease your queen."

"No, Your Grace," said Arya as she ran the brush through Cersei's golden hair one last time. "I won't, Your Grace."


	18. Chapter 18

They slept together that night, Dany and Jon, curled together in the massive, fur-strewn bed. When she'd divested herself of the last of her clothing, and Jon stood by the bed, naked as the day he were born, she thought of making love to him, but there seemed so many reasons they ought not. This was so new, not only their attraction but their relationship at all; mere weeks, they had known each other. There was more to consider besides the urges of unruly flesh. A kingdom lay in the balance; two, if one accepted Jon's declaration that the North was and would remain autonomous (which Dany did _not_ , but which was also besides the point).

And so, when he slid under the furs, she opened her arms to him, held him close, but did not let her hands roam over all that hair-dusted, scar-roughened skin as they wanted. She did not circle his slim hips with her legs and trap him against her center, with no recourse but to sink inside, as she ached to do. And Jon did not touch her anywhere that might be construed as sensual, only stroked her hair and arm and back, until they fell into an exhausted sleep.

Jon rubbed the liniment into her sore knee the next morning, and between the herbal cure and the heat from his hands, she felt much better by the time they climbed aboard Drogon for the next leg of their journey.

Their flight back to Winterfell, after their ordeal of the day before, was as anti-climactic as anything Dany had ever experienced. What could possibly live up to a close escape from a pack of ghouls? She still felt shaken by what she'd seen and endured.

Jon, however, was his usual self, brooding frowns lightened by quicksilver smiles, gone as swiftly as they came. She found herself breathlessly awaiting those smiles, wondering when the next would come, wondering what she could do to coax one into existence.

They relaxed into each other as Drogon flew, their cheeks pressed together, and talked and talked and talked. She told him about her vagabond childhood, always escaping one step ahead of those who would kill a child to end her claim on the throne. He told her about his singular situation, of being a bastard not only claimed by his father but raised alongside his legitimate half-siblings. Usually, he explained, bastards were hidden away somewhere with a yearly stipend and a vague promise of a living from a distant noble parent they rarely saw.

She told him about Viserys, and he tensed behind her to hear of her brother's myriad mistreatments of her over the years. He told her about Catelyn Stark's coldness, and how she'd taught it to Sansa, and how glad he was that his sister had gotten past it so they could become close as he'd always wanted.

She told him about Drogo, weeping when she revealed how she'd had to smother him to end his suffering, and he held her even tighter. He told her about Ygritte, his face as hot as fire from blushing as he explained— haltingly, and with many awkward euphemisms— about how he had shocked the wildling so very much in a cave. Dany had enjoyed such an act with Daario, but the prospect of it being Jon down there, instead, had her breath coming quicker.

He had sensed the direction of her thoughts, because she felt a hardness in the small of her back, and then he turned her face so he could kiss her, deliciously aggressive in a way she had not thought he would be.

It was a primal kiss, deeper and wetter than the slow, sweet kisses of the previous night, and they abandoned themselves to it until Drogon bucked and screeched, clearly disturbed at what was occurring on his back. Dany came back to her senses to find that Jon's hands had slid up to cup her breasts, and hers were gripping his thighs, bracketing her hips as they were, and she'd dug crescent-shaped dents with her fingernails in the leather of his trousers.

 _Well,_ she thought dazedly, _I no longer have to worry if there can be passion between us._ Her lips were swollen, almost bruised, and her mouth tasted of his. Her heavy woolen clothes felt restricting. She wanted to slide and rub her naked skin across his, to cover him and have him cover her, to take him deep and let him take her in return.

Jon removed his hands and sat back, purposefully leaving space between them for the cool air to rush in and dampen the sensations still rampant between them. Dany gripped Drogon's spikes to keep from rubbing back into the thick erection she knew burgeoned for her.

They kept to neutral topics, after that, out of necessity.

They arrived at Winterfell with the gloaming. It felt bizarrely warm there, after the frigid awfulness by the Wall. People ran out to meet them when Drogon landed, as before, but this time Arya was not one of them. Sansa ran up to them, and gasped, "Jon, Jon—"

"What's wrong?" he demanded, grasping her arms.

"Bran!" she exclaimed. "Bran's back! Arya's gone, but Bran is here!"

He began running toward the keep, Sansa following, gasping out more details as they kicked up puffs of snow with each tread. Dany jogged after them, trying to make heads or tails from it all.

"He came with Meera Reed… Summer is dead… Hodor, too, and some wildling woman who he'd become close to… no, not in that way, like an aunt… and he's different, Jon. He's calling himself the three-eyed raven and stares at me so. He saw my… my wedding night with… with Ramsey. He says he has seen everything, everything we've been through."

Dany did not know how much of it he would recall, later, so she tried to remember it all for him.

Jon burst into the solar and skidded to a halt so suddenly Dany almost careened into him. A young man— a boy, really— was seated in a chair, and beside him was a girl whose plain face was surrounded by luxuriant dark curls.

"Jon," the boy said, his voice utterly lacking in inflection, his face blank of expression.

"Bran." He took an aborted step forward. "I'd heard about your fall. Your legs." Another step. "I don't know what to—"

He clearly wanted to embrace the boy, but the chair, and Bran's inability to leave it, was throwing him.

"Here, Jon," Dany said softly, taking his hand and tugging to bring him by Bran's chair, then pushing on his shoulder until he knelt at its side. He gave her a grateful glance before reaching for his brother, pulling him into the sort of rough hug men gave each other.

Bran submitted to it, but his eyes retained that distance, and wandered to Dany even as Jon started talking.

"We'd thought you were dead, but Theon told Sansa he couldn't find you, that it was a lie. But… did she tell you about Robb and Rickon? And Arya?"

Jon drew back, wanting answers to his questions, but stopped when he saw how Bran was staring at Dany. The boy's eyes were dark, like Jon's, but where Jon's could dance with mischief or gleam with appreciation or glint with determination, Bran's were empty, and somehow both deep and flat at the same time.

"You're cursed," he murmured, his eyes moving unerringly to her belly.

Jon jerked back. "Bran?"

"She is cursed." Bran's gaze slid to his brother's, and then back to hers.

Dany sucked in a breath, shocked.

"The maegi… to punish you."

"Yes," she said, but it was more like a sob. She felt blindsided, dazed, as if she'd been struck in the face without expecting it. "I deserved it. I was stupid. I killed them both."

"No," Bran replied, his casual tone at odds with the roiling emotions his words were churning in her. "Your intentions were pure."

"I should have realized, should have known better—"

He smiled, an eerie, vacant smile. "We can't know what we have not yet learned."

Tears pooled in her eyes, then tumbled down her cheeks. Her insides had drawn up tight.

"The curse will break," Bran then added, suddenly, as if the information had just come to him. Surprised him.

Dany _shook_ , unable to hold her composure. Concerned, Jon stood and drew her close, his lips at her temple. "How?"

"When fire and ice sing together." He glanced between them. "This must be the last time, though. Too much fire, and the world burns."

"What does that mean?" Jon wanted to know, but Bran just shrugged.

"He's the Three-Eyed Raven," said Sansa.

"Whatever the fuck that is," muttered Clegane.

"He's a greenseer," said the plain girl standing behind Bran. "He's _the_ greenseer."

Still trembling, Dany was done with seers and maegi and everything magical for the night. She touched Jon's shoulder. "Can I have a room? I'd like to lay down."

"Of course," he said right away, holding her against his chest. She pressed her face into him, inhaling his scent and trying to regain some of her lost composure. How were these people going to respect her as a queen when she fell apart in front of them like that?

"Is my room— the new one— ready?" she heard Jon ask, presumably Sansa, but it sounded as if it were coming from far away. Then he lifted her into his arms. She was carried up a flight of stairs and deposited on a bed. She heard the door shut, and then Jon eased himself onto the bed next to her, pulling her back into his embrace.

"What was that?" he asked. "What was that, Dany?"

Her heart ached, somehow even more, to hear him say her shortened name, the name used only by those closest to her. She clutched at him and poured out the loss of Rhaego. She'd held it back, when describing Drogo's passing, not able to put voice to the words of her son's death, but now she gave them all to Jon.

"I'm sorry," he said, over and over. His rough hands stroked her hair, smoothed down her arms, cupped her cheek, and slowly she calmed. "I'm so sorry."

"I apologize for making such a scene," Dany said when she felt able, and sat up to swipe her hair off her tear-damp cheeks.

He sat up, too. "You know I don't care about that." He tugged her into his lap, mindful of her knee, and cradled her against his chest. She rested there, limp as an old dishrag, until a knock sounded on the door and Sansa poked her head through.

"Is all well?" she whispered, sounding worried.

"Yes," Dany replied before Jon could. "I am sorry. It was a shock."

"Of course, of course," Sansa murmured. "Shall I have supper sent up?" She paused before continuing, with exquisite delicacy, "Shall I have your old room prepared, Jon?"

Ah, she'd not been blind to their new, closer dynamic. They hadn't been especially subtle about it. Dany nodded against Jon's shoulder.

"Supper, yes," he replied. "Old room, no."

"I'll have your things laundered again," said Sansa. "Leave those clothes outside the door, so they can be cleaned, too."

Supper soon arrived, venison glazed with red wine and roasted root vegetables. Dany was sure it was delicious but she tasted little of it, exhaustion and emotion rendering her movements automatic until the plate was clean.

She roused briefly when Jon began helping her to shed her clothing. She even assisted him in removing his, and checked to ensure the bandages over his wounds were still secure. Soon, thankfully, they were under the heavy blankets. Jon pulled her close, until she rested more on him than the bed, and she curled around him before the last of her energy was depleted.

Dany woke very early. They had reversed positions, some time in the night, and now she was flat on her back with Jon draped over her, his head pillowed on one breast and his hand firmly anchored over the other. She let her fingertips drift over the long, muscled expanse of his back, relishing the feel of his skin, and he murmured nonsense but did not wake.

Her full bladder began to insist she rise, so she carefully extricated herself from Jon at last. Their clothes had been cleaned, as before, so she slipped into one of her lighter outfits and went in search of a garderobe. After having availed herself of it, she went down to the solar in search of some food, intending to bring it back to the bedroom to share with Jon.

However, the solar was already full of people, even at that early hour, all of whom turned to stare at her entrance.

"Good morning," she said, striving for serenity but afraid she was barely managing composure.

A chorus of 'good mornings' came back to her. Bran, however, only stared at her.

"Are you better today, Your Grace?" Sansa inquired.

"Much, thank you." After a glance askance at Bran, Dany took two plates and began to pile food on them.

"How was your expedition to Hardhome?" Sansa continued. "Did you find the proof you needed?"

"Yes," replied Dany. "I was attacked by wights. Jon saved me."

The image of him standing over her, sword at the ready, fearless and determined… that was the moment she had fallen in love with him. She'd been attracted almost instantly— apparently, she had a weakness for dark men— but to see him ready and willing to fight to the death— to protect _her_ , who had been nothing but a thorn in his side since the day they had met— she was a strong woman, but she had no immunity against him, it would seem. None at all.

A polite cough sounded. She glanced up to find them all staring at her, and realized she'd drifted off into her thoughts.

"We barely managed to escape," she hastily continued, hoping she wasn't blushing. "It was a harrowing experience, one I wish never to repeat. But I am now satisfied that that threat Jon and Ser Davos spoke of is real, and far more pressing than the one presented by Cersei. We shall have to find a winning strategy to eliminate her as quickly as possible, with the least number of casualties, so we have forces left to fight the White Walkers. This will be a challenge."

"Well said," commented Jon, entering the room behind her.

"Oh," Dany said lamely, looking down at the two plates she held. He gave her one of his quick smiles and reached for one of them. "I had thought to let you sleep. You needed it."

"Can't afford to leave too late," he said, holding out a chair for her. "We have to make haste to get to Dragonstone and put things in motion. Sansa, have ravens gone out to the lords? Does everyone know what they are to do?"

She nodded, hurriedly chewing and swallowing her bite of eggs so she could answer. "As soon as Arya gave me your decree, yes. Sandor and Brienne have already begun drilling all troops stationed here."

"I think I should go to The Eyrie," Clegane said. "There are more troops there, and my guess is that they haven't trained since Jon Arryn died. Maybe before that, even. They'll be useless except for arrow-fodder if they don't get some practice in."

Jon nodded slowly. "An excellent idea. Sansa, you'll remain here."

She looked stricken, but nodded. She knew that, as his regent while he was gone, she was needed at the seat of power. Dany approved of her acceptance of the necessities of war.

"Speaking of Arya," Jon continued. "You said last night that she was gone."

"She left yesterday morning, Gendry went after her. I'm sure they'll be fine, Jon. She's different, now. She's probably safer than we are."

"Gendry?"

"The new blacksmith. They're old friends."

"Ah." Jon turned to the girl who had arrived with Bran. "Meera Reed, yes?" At her nod, he smiled. "Thank you for your loyalty to Bran. We've seen your father just days ago, and are leaving for Greywater Watch this morning, in fact. Do you have a message you'd like us to give him?"

"Tell him that Jojen is dead," Meera answered, her voice soft. "Tell him… tell him that I'm sorry. Though I expect he probably knows about both, already."

Jon's eyes were wide. He nodded. "I will."

Brienne cleared her throat, disturbing the quiet that followed. "I… there was more to the warning I received from my… friend in King's Landing," she began, sounding and looking profoundly uncomfortable.

"More?" Sansa asked, looking betrayed. "Why did you hide it?"

Brienne drooped a bit. "I was not sure—" She glanced at Dany. "I had to be sure that Her Grace was able to be trusted with this information. It could be used against her, and I had to know whether she was ally or enemy, first. Whether we needed to keep this for our own use against her."

Dany arched a pale brow at her. "And now?"

Brienne looked pointedly from her to Jon, to how they were sitting so close. Dany supposed it was obvious even without words that they had come to an accord of hearts some time between their departure from Winterfell and their return.

"Do you trust her, Your Grace, or do you want me to hold this information back?" Awkward Brienne might be with social niceties, but when it came to battle, she was smooth as glass.

Jon looked at her, his eyes as fathomless and deep as dragonglass. "Yes," he said. "I trust her."

Dany stared back, wondering if her heart shone from her eyes as clearly as Jon's did from his own. "Thank you." She turned back to Brienne. "Your faith in your king does you credit," she told the woman. "What is this warning you have received that affects me in some way?"

Brienne's eyes fixed on her, and Dany wondered, absently, if there might be dragon in the Tarth bloodline, because her eyes were almost purple, and her hair was certainly the right color.

"I am told that Cersei's maesters have been hard at work," the sworn shield announced. "And that they have developed a ballista powerful enough to pierce even a dragon's strong hide."

Dread rose up within Dany, gripping her so that her limbs locked. It was swiftly followed by rage.

"She thinks to eliminate the threat my children pose to her?" she said, her voice icy with disdain. "They are hardier than she thinks. They are no mere aurochs, to fall over dead when pierced by a weapon. Spears and arrows are nothing but splinters to them. I know, because I have removed a half-dozen spears from Drogon with my own hands, and he was still able to fly. He healed, and grew larger still. Stronger still. She will fail, and my dragons will breathe fire over everything she has touched, to cleanse Westeros of her blight."

An awkward silence fell. Dany supposed she might have been a touch too vehement but if she were to have anything to do with Jon, it was best they learned of her volatile nature sooner rather than later, wasn't it? No time like the present, and all that.

"I'm off to train," muttered Clegane, shoving back his chair and almost running from the room to get away from her, and no wonder, if those burns were from fire, as Dany surmised. The man had likely had enough of fire to last him a lifetime.

"I should join him," added Brienne, standing.

"Thank you," Dany told her, reaching out to touch Brienne's sleeve. "I appreciate your honesty."

"I trust His Grace," Brienne said bluntly, "and he believes in you. See that it is not misplaced."

And she strode away.

Thankfully, it was time to leave soon after that. Jon had another round of teary farewells, Dany's rather less so as she thanked Bran and Sansa and Brienne for their kindnesses. Drogon was in a fine mood from another belly-full of deer, and apparently fully recovered from whatever pique he'd felt from having to endure the evils of Hardhome, so they were soon launching skyward, headed south.

"I missed you, waking up this morning," Jon said. He was pressed closed against her, his arms wound snugly around her waist and his chin resting on her shoulder.

"I had thought to bring you breakfast in bed," she replied with a smile, "but you had other ideas."

"Another time." He pressed a kiss to her cheek. "Is it just me, or are you feeling… positive? I had gotten so used to being without family, without resources, without much of anything. I'd been feeling like an ant fighting a… a dragon, overwhelmed and without a chance, but now—"

"But now you're feeling like it could be possible," she finished for him.

"Like anything could be," he agreed.

"Anything _could_ be possible," Dany replied. "How is it that you are exactly perfect for me? Precisely what I want and need? The odds against it are staggering, Jon, but it is still so." She nestled more closely back into the curve of his body. "That is how I know we will be victorious. There's no way the gods could favor us this much, only to snatch it all away and have us fail."

Jon kissed her cheek again. "I have less faith in the gods, Dany, because it seems to me as if they most like to take away joy just when one becomes used to it. I am afraid to lose you, just as we have found each other."

"You won't." She put as much emphasis and surety into her words as she could, wanting to bolster his confidence. She knew he was naturally a pessimistic person, but the reason _she_ was perfect for _him_ was because her confidence was unshakable. He might doubt, but she never did. "I won't let anything come between us."

Jon kissed her a third time, this one placed on her neck, just where the fragile vein throbbed.

"If I had to bet," he said, "it would be on you, every time."


	19. Chapter 19

When they arrived at Greywater Watch this time, the barge was waiting for them, and they had a more comfortable trip from shore to castle than they had the first time, stuffed together into a coracle. Dany was hooded once more, as they felt it still prudent to keep her identity as much a secret as possible, now that they were away from Winterfell and in a place where it was more likely the information could fall into the wrong hands.

"Welcome, Your Grace," said Howland Reed, "and Your Grace," he added, including Dany in his salutation. He led them right into the same small dining room for supper, knowing they'd be hungry after their long hours of flight. He inquired as to how their mission had gone, and was pleased that Dany would be working in concert with Jon instead of against him. He reported that he had sent men to scout the Twins and see what sort of force would be needed to take it.

His gaze flicked over them as they ate, and she knew he was taking in how much closer she and Jon were this time than they had the last, both in physical proximity and how they interacted with each other. There was an intimacy in their speech, the way they used each other's given names, and in how they looked at each other, long and intense glances that seemed to pulse and spark every time their eyes met. Lord Reed observed all of this, and when their meal was finished, he requested a moment alone with Jon.

"I'll meet you in your chamber," Jon told her, pressing her hand between both of his briefly before a servant came to lead the again-hooded Dany to where she would rest that night.

The room she was brought to was not the same as her previous stay there, on a different floor of the floating castle entirely, and much larger. There was a fireplace, she was pleased to see, and a blaze had warmed the space already, which pleased her even more. The bed itself was twice the size she'd slept in before, and the pack Jon had carried was already placed on a bench at the foot of it.

Lord Reed had known before they had arrived that they would want to share a chamber. And his daughter had said he probably already knew that someone named Jojen had died. Dany realized they were likely seers, like Thoros of Myr and Jon's brother. She shivered; she did not like when people knew things she did not.

She stripped off and climbed into the bed, sinking into the mattress as she waited for Jon, eager to feel his strong body against hers once again, and for the whole night. The extent of her desire for him was not shocking, exactly, because once she had learned how to enjoy sex with Drogo, her passions had stoked just as high. But she respected Jon as much as she wanted him. There was a power she had not realized in goodness, an attraction she had underestimated. She had been, from her childhood, deprived of and starved for the type of virtue and honor that were his core components. And now, faced with someone who embodied all that she had longed for, her defenses had crumbled to dust.

She felt the slightest bit uneasy because of how swiftly affection had grown between them. They had packed quite a lot of time together into a small number of days, had learned the other's deepest regrets and fondest hopes. Did it have to take a long time, when discovering love with someone who seemed tailor-made to fit you? Could it last, something that had built so quickly? Or was it doomed to just as rapid a decline?

Her dragon's nature roared at the idea of losing the greatest jewel in her hoard. He was hers, the dragon seethed. Hers, and no one else's, and she would not let him go. Not without a battle to shake the foundations of the world.

She drowsed, warm and relaxed, and had almost fallen asleep when Jon returned. The firelight lovingly caressed the hollows and curves of his muscles as he shucked his clothes, and when he finally slipped into the bed, her arms were open for him.

"Dany," he said into her hair, an odd note in his voice. "Dany."

"Jon," she said, and drew him close, legs tangling and arms twining. "Will you take me tonight? The walls are very thin, and I cannot promise I will be quiet, but I can try."

He groaned at that, tense against her, even when she stroked his hair and kissed his face and neck, his limbs only relaxing after a long while, despite his clear exhaustion.

"What is wrong?" she asked softly, while trailing fingertips over his shoulders and back. "Tell me."

"Lord Reed gave me some… some very unwelcome news," he said at last, his voice muffled against her throat.

"Did something go wrong at the Twins?" she asked. "I thought he said at supper that all was well, so far?"

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "It is a matter that will take long to discuss," he said at last. "And we're tired, and must be up again early." He drew back enough to look into her eyes. "Let's talk about it at Dragonstone."

"Not while we fly? There will be plenty of time."

"This is the type of thing that must be done face to face."

"Alright," she said, not wanting to press him further, weary as he was. "At Dragonstone."

"Thank you," he mumbled, and turned so that she was draped over him as he liked. He combed his fingers through her hair, letting it fall over his chest like a veil, and when his fingers fell away, she knew he was asleep, and followed him soon after.

When they landed at Dragonstone, it was to find Ser Davos and Missandei and Tyrion running down to the empty patch of land from where they had departed, mere days and an eternity ago. Not one of them said a word when they observed how Jon assisted her down from Drogon's back, though they knew it was unnecessary, nor when Jon's hand found the small of Dany's back as they walked toward the little assembly.

Tyrion's keen gaze was piercing when it met hers. "Have you found the answers you sought?" he asked.

"I have," she confirmed. "And more."

He looked from her to Jon but said nothing.

"How did everything go, Your Grace?" Ser Davos asked Jon. He took in their faces, the long narrow slice on Dany's cheek and lip. "No problems, I hope. I see Her Grace has suffered an injury."

"Some problems," Jon replied. "A few problems. All handled. Oh."

He began to dig in the pack and extracted the little pot of salve Thoros had given them for their injuries. "So you have it when you need it." His eyes were warm as they roamed over her face, tracing the line of the scratch before lingering on her mouth, and the tiny smile he quirked, doubtless in fond memory of the kisses they had shared, was a secret only for her.

Except everyone had been watching them, and seen how they'd stared at each other, transfixed, in their own world for those brief few seconds.

"You'll need it, too," she replied. "You were hurt worse than I was."

He only shrugged. "Didn't kill me. I'm fine."

She was coming to realize, and become frustrated by, his disregard for his own health and safety. Annoyance flashed in her eyes, surprising him. "Dany?"

But she turned to the others. "We have much to discuss. We will bathe, then eat, and meet briefly so we can answer the most pressing of your questions."

"I already ordered hot water and food when we saw Drogon approaching," Missandei said, her smile cautious as it encompassed both Dany and Jon, and Dany could tell she was concerned.

"Thank you." She took the lead, as they were expecting, to progress into the castle, but when Jon didn't join her, she looked back at him, inquiring. He looked back, dark eyes sober, perhaps a little confused, but joined her at the head of the little line. It was a moment before his hand found its place at her back once more.

Dany recalled that he needed to speak with her about something of great importance, something that had him tense and restive. She was feeling tense and restive, herself, worried about the upcoming invasion by the White Walkers, about wresting the throne from Cersei; even, she found, about explaining to Tyrion and Missandei what had happened between her and Jon, knowing they already suspected and likely would be displeased.

Once inside, they parted where the vast corridor branched, one way heading toward her own chambers and one toward where he and Ser Davos had been given rooms. Jon's eyes, were both soft and intense on hers as she paused at the junction.

"I will meet with my counselors while I bathe," she told him, "and advise you to do the same with Ser Davos. After, we can all take a meal together and share with them what we have learned."

"You'll bathe with Tyrion in the room?" He looked surprised and, to her mingled pleasure and amusement, indignant.

"Oh, we talk while she bathes all the time," Tyrion mentioned with a wave of the hand.

It was not exactly true, for while she had met with him while bathing on a small number of occasions, they had all been while they were pressed for time and could not spare the hour for both their needed discussion and her ablutions. Dany glanced down at her Hand and saw the gleam in his eye; he was teasing Jon, pushing for a reaction. She opened her mouth to speak but it was Missandei who provided the correction.

"Her Grace does not, in fact, bathe with her Hand all the time," she said, her voice smooth and devoid of inflection, but Dany could sense her annoyance. "Very rarely."

"He will have his little jokes," Dany added, "though often he is the only one who finds them amusing." She shot him a glance that had him bowing in acknowledgment of her reproach.

Jon relaxed, shooting Tyrion an opaque glance. "Until then."

She quirked him a little close-lipped smile, and nodded, then turned and led the way to her suite of rooms. Once inside, the mannerly interrogation began.

"How were you injured, Your Grace?" asked Tyrion as Dany went behind her dressing screen and began to disrobe. "I noticed you are limping somewhat."

Missandei brought her a silk robe and helped to slip it on. Tying the belt around her waist, she came back out, saying, "That will be part of the tale we share during supper. We don't have much time alone, so we must speak of things that cannot be said in front of them."

Tyrion nodded. "Of course. May I begin? For some disturbing news has reached us in recent days."

"Of course." She walked to the bathing room, where a huge black marble tub steamed with bubble-laded water. Missandei placed herself strategically so Tyrion only got the merest glimpses of bare flesh as Dany removed her robe and stepped into the water.

"Most of our fleet is destroyed," he said bluntly. "Euron Greyjoy attacked it. A few ships managed to escape. Very few. The Sand women and Yara and Theon Greyjoy are presumed dead or captured."

Dany froze, staring across the room at him, then ducked her head under the water while her mind processed what she'd heard. Missandei brought her the hair soap, and she poured out a measure into her palm before lathering it into her scalp.

"What else?" she asked tersely, knowing more was coming.

"While Grey Worm and his troops were attacking Casterly Rock, my brother and his forces marched on the Reach," Tyrion said. "Olenna Tyrell is dead, and the Reach has been stripped of anything Cersei could possibly use. Gold, supplies, everything."

She dunked under the water again to rinse the soap from her hair. He and Missandei stood, alert but silent, while she thought.

"I have seen the White Walkers," she said at last. "They are everything Jon and Ser Davos claimed, and more. Worse. The matter of Cersei is a minor one in comparison. Cersei is minor in comparison. I had thought her evil, but now that I have experienced true evil, I know better. She is a tyrant, and mad, but in the end, only human, with the usual human frailties and weaknesses. Not to be underestimated, but…"

She gave herself a quick scrub, wanting to be done so she could be with Jon again.

"To be dealt with as quickly and efficiently as possible. With as few casualties on both sides, because once I sit in the Iron Throne, her men become mine. And I will need every last one, if we are to defeat the Night King."

"So what are you saying, Your Grace?" Tyrion asked carefully. "It sounds as if your desire to spare as much of King's Landing as possible is no longer your priority."

"That's exactly what I'm saying." She stood and let Missandei wrap a linen sheet around her, stepping out of the tub and back to the dressing screen. "The loss of life in that city will be regrettable. Unfortunate. But it will be a fraction of the loss we would experience if we delay and the undead are able to pass beyond the Wall. As Jon said when he first arrived…"

Behind the screen, she toweled dry and put on the gown Missandei had set out for her, of lilac wool with silver embroidery. She wished there were time for a more elaborate hair arrangement, as Jon had spent the last week seeing her in a practical and utilitarian single braid, but her eagerness to see him again won out over her vanity, and she submitted to just a few small braids that were pulled back and twisted with draping silver chains strung with pearls.

"Your Grace?" Missandei prompted. "As Lord Snow said when he first arrived?"

"Ah, yes," Dany replied absently, a little embarrassed to have been caught distracted. "If we do not act quickly, I will be ruling over a graveyard."

She left the shelter of the dressing screen to find Tyrion standing there, his face grave.

"Tens of thousands will die in King's Landing," he said cautiously.

"They'll die anyway," she countered, but not without compassion. "But a million might be spared by their sacrifice." She sighed and placed a hand on his shoulder. "You play chess, Tyrion. You know the necessity, sometimes, of offering up a lesser piece in order to win."

There was a knock on the door.

"Enter," Dany called, and Varys came in.

"Your Grace." His gaze, purple like her own, took in everything. He saw the scratch on her face, and probably could sense the soreness of her knee, as well. "Lord Snow is ready, Your Grace. I… observed… his discussion with Ser Davos—"

She lifted a brow at that. "Spied on him in the bath, you mean. On whose authority?"

Varys glanced toward Tyrion.

"You said you wanted him monitored at all times, while at Dragonstone," her Hand justified, seeming a tad sulky.

"I did not mean to invade his privacy, and you know it." He bowed, unhappily, in apology and she turned back to Varys. "You may as well share with me what you learned. But do not do it again."

He, too, bowed. "They discussed some issues in the North, of which believe you are already aware. I learned that he has grown… very fond of you. And that he and his Hand are worried what that will mean to the North. He is relieved you now trust him about the Night King, and hopeful that together you will be able to combat the undead threat." He paused. "He said that you have restored to him several different kinds of hope, in fact, that he had thought he'd never feel again."

Dany swallowed past the lump that formed in her throat and averted her face to hide the tears that sprang to her eyes, blinking rapidly until they were gone.

"He said that he had learned something very disturbing," Varys continued, "and that he dreaded to tell you, but did not say what it was. Ser Davos suggested that Lord Snow simply not reveal the matter to you, but Lord Snow said that you deserved to know. That there would be no secrets between you. That he had seen what secrets had done to Lord and Lady Stark and he would not risk any such thing with you."

It took everything within Dany to keep from running out of her suite, from finding Jon and… she didn't know what she wanted to do. Hold him, kiss him, make love to him for days. She could still feel his strong body as it had been throughout all their flying, along her back and legs, his arms around her waist, his breath on her ear and cheek, his voice in her ear. She felt the memory of the entire trip engraving itself upon her heart, to be remembered forever.

"Well," she said instead, "let us not keep them waiting."


	20. Chapter 20

Author's Note: Thank you to everyone who has commented, I really appreciate your encouragement and feedback! It's wonderful to see how you're enjoying it. This is a chapter I know many of you have been eagerly anticipating. I hope it's everything you wanted it to be :)

Question: I wrote a **sex scene** between Dany and Jon, but have decided not to include it with the story, as it doesn't really add much to the narrative and I'd like to keep the story at a PG-13 sort of content rating. However, what would you think about me publishing it as a **separate story**? Then those who want to read it, can. Please let me know your feelings in a **review**!

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When Dany left her suite, it was to see Jon waiting for her at the junction of the corridors where they had parted. He wore a doublet of darkest gray over leather trousers that looked painted onto his tautly muscled thighs, and though he had not been asked to relinquish his weapons this time upon arriving at Dragonstone, Longclaw was not buckled at his side, in a show of trust and peace.

She started toward him at an eager jog before she realized they were surrounded by nosy counselors who'd love nothing more than to see her act a fool. She finished the approach at a dignified pace, ignoring Tyrion's exasperation and Ser Davos' benign amusement.

Jon held out a hand for her and she took it, unable to look away from his face as he placed her hand on his forearm. He didn't kiss her hand, or her lips, or even pull her especially close as they descended the stairs and headed for the cavernous dining room, but the way his eyes blazed as he watched her… it felt like a physical touch, and heat bloomed within her belly.

She hoped, she _hoped_ that he would make love to her that night. She had relished sleeping at his side at Eastwatch, at Winterfell and at Greywater Watch, and the sensation of his bare skin against her own was an incomparable delight, but he had not yet touched her with anything other than affection and reverence, and she felt ready to burst out of her skin with desire for him.

 _Chivalry can go too far,_ she thought as she seated herself at the head of the table, _especially when you_ _want __to be taken advantage of._

Tyrion sat to her right, Missandei on her left. Jon sat by Missandei, Ser Davos by Tyrion, and Varys by Ser Davos. The other twenty-five vacant seats seemed to stretch into infinity, and not for the first time, Dany thought with derision of how ludicrous these huge shows of wealth were. The room was so dark and tall and… and shiny. Cold. Colder-feeling than Winterfell, and how could that be? The weather here in Blackwater Bay was positively balmy in comparison— oh.

 _It was the family that made Winterfell hospitable and cozy, not the weather._

She lifted her gaze to Jon, and found him watching her, his eyes tender. Her chest squeezed, almost painfully.

Tyrion cleared his throat. "I am breathless with anticipation to hear of your journey, Your Grace," he prompted, eyebrows in full waggle as he tried to get her to focus.

She looked down as a bowl of soup was placed before her, then back up at the people ranged around her. "Our first stop was at Greywater Watch," she began, "and there we met Lord Howland Reed…"

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By the time supper was over and the last dishes cleared away, their Hands, Missandei, and Varys had all been told of the last week's travails. Dany had tried to keep her account of it dignified, and Jon had, too, but they kept interrupting each other to add some left-out detail. They laughed over Arya's warning Dany away from her blacksmith, and how awkwardly sweet the Hound was with Sansa— to Tyrion's gaping shock— and when Dany described Jon's bravery at Hardhome, how he'd leapt from the back of a flying dragon and fought off over a dozen wights to save her— she knew the full force of her heart was in her eyes.

She looked around at Tyrion, at Missandei and Varys, and knew there was a sort of pleading on her face, a wordless way of asking them, _how could I not love him?_

"I beg your pardon for asking a sensitive question, Your Grace," said Ser Davos carefully, "but I think we all are aware that the nature of your interactions with His Grace has shifted over the course of the week."

Her eyes flicked to Jon again, as if he were the true North to the compass of her attention. "Yes," she replied.

"I think we need to discuss what that means," Davos continued.

Dany didn't reply right away, because she didn't know what to say. She and Jon had carefully avoided speaking of it.

Finally, gathering her thoughts, she said, "Jon knows my intentions for my kingdoms. I know his for the North. We both know they are incompatible, as they stand. I feel it is too early, yet in our… acquaintance… to make plans beyond an agreement to be allies against first Cersei, and then the threat from the Night King."

"There's no point to stirring up trouble with the Northern lords with talk of joining all of Westeros into one nation again, if we all end up dead at the hand of a wight," Jon said. "Once it's all over, if we survive, then decisions can be made."

There was the faintest question in his eyes when he looked at her, and she nodded to show her agreement.

"So are you saying you are proclaiming yourself queen of, not the Seven Kingdoms, but only six?" Tyrion asked cautiously.

"Indeed not," she replied archly. "With the demise of Ellaria Sand and her daughters, there is a power vacuum in Dorne. No longer; it shall be my seventh kingdom. And," she continued into the silence that fell, "if the Greyjoy siblings are gone as well, and Euron Greyjoy has thrown in his lot with Cersei, why, I'll take the Iron Islands as well. _Eight_ kingdoms, not a mere seven. What think you?"

Tyrion looked, frankly, poleaxed. Missandei's pretty face was creased with concern. Varys, as always, was a blank slate, and Davos had assumed a stoic expression as well. Jon, though… Jon's eyes were ablaze with admiration and relief. He had not wanted to fight with her, no more than she had wanted to fight with him.

"And," she continued, gazing back at him, "if there comes a time when Stark and Targaryen become united as more than mere allies… we can discuss the implications when that happens. Until then, the Eight Kingdoms and the North are formally, officially allies against the Night King's army of the undead."

Tyrion heaved a sigh and slid down out of his chair. "I'll get the scribes started on writing the declaration," he said heavily.

"I'll, er, help," Davos hastened to say, following Tyrion out. "Lady Missandei, perhaps you would be so kind as to help us?"

As subtlety went, it was lacking, but after Dany nodded to Missandei, the girl followed the Hands from the room.

The moment the door shut, Jon had her in his arms. "Thank you, thank you," he muttered, scattering kisses over her face.

"We have so much to talk about," she said, pulling gently from his embrace, then unable to resist stretching up and kissing his lips once more. "I had terrible news about my allies, and have come to a decision about how to battle Cersei."

"We will talk about all of that, and more, but before we do that… before we go any farther, as allies or as… as lovers," he stumbled over the word, "I must tell you something."

Ah, this would be the secret imparted to him by Howland Reed, the secret he dreaded telling her. His face was worried, but earnest as usual, and so dear to her now that Dany wondered how she could ever have thought him a barbarian.

"So tell me," she replied lightly. "But not here," she added, thinking of Varys and his talent at eavesdropping. "Too many ears."

The only place Dany could think of where nobody could slink around, tucked away into corners to overhear, was outside, so they walked out to the parapet overlooking the Blackwater. The air was cold, with the advancing winter, but not unpleasantly so; nothing near what they'd experienced earlier that week.

"You should sit," he told her, so she found a smooth expanse of wall to settle on.

Jon paced back and forth before her for a full minute. He had pulled back his hair into a small tail at his crown, but an unruly tendril had escaped, tossed about by the breeze. Dany's eyes followed him in gentle amusement, knowing she had to wait him out until he had gathered the words he needed.

When he did, he swiftly knelt before where she sat and took her hands.

"Dany."

"Yes, Jon." She freed one hand so she could stroke that one errant lock back, and then cup his cheek. "What has you so agitated? Tell me. We shall solve it."

He closed his eyes and leaned into her hand, pressing it closer with his own. Then he opened his eyes again, fixing her with their dark brilliance, and said, "Last night, at Greywater Watch, Howland Reed told me the truth of my mother. _And_ of my father."

She tilted her head to one side. "But you knew who your father was."

"Turns out, I didn't." He gave a short laugh, devoid of humor. "It seems that Eddark Stark was not my father, but my uncle. The brother of my mother, Lyanna Stark."

Dany was taken aback, and her mind raced to understand. Lyanna Stark… who had been abducted by Dany's own brother, Rhaegar… Lyanna had been missing for a year… and then good Ned Stark shocked the kingdom by returning home to Winterfell with a bastard.

But not his own bastard, apparently.

His sister's.

With Dany's brother.

 _Jon was her nephew._

"Lord Stark… Eddard… Uncle Ned…" Jon looked lost as he struggled to find a name for the man he'd called Father his entire life. "He tracked Lyanna's… my mother's… trail to Dorne." He took a shuddering breath. "She died giving birth to me there."

It was shocking news, more for the realization of what had happened all those years ago, the mystery of Lyanna's fate solved at last, than because of the revelation of blood shared between her and Jon. It did not change her feelings for him; as the product of generations of incest, it was more of a footnote in the book of her life than a chapter.

But Jon… Jon looked shattered by it, and she realized why he'd been so agitated after speaking with Lord Reed, before leaving Greywater Watch, and why he hadn't touched her intimately last night. She'd wondered what could be so wrong, and worried that he wouldn't tell her right away what it was. In a way, she was relieved it was only this.

"Well," she said, "it certainly explains why Drogon likes you so."

He stared at her, begging her to take the matter seriously. She sighed gently.

"Jon," she began, "this only has to be a problem if you make it one."

"What? Of course it's a problem—"

"I do not care if I am your aunt. I was raised to believe I would marry my brother Viserys, as my father married his own sister, so taking a step back from the closeness of that relation is an improvement, to my way of thinking."

She smiled at him, and the corners of his mouth twitched as he tried, but failed, to smile back.

"I was not raised to expect any such thing, though," he said at last, his voice hoarse. "The concept is abhorrent to me. But I cannot put out the… flame in my heart, that you have lit. The thought of you makes me _burn_ , Dany. I don't want to be apart from you, but I don't know if I can disregard the knowledge that we share blood so closely."

She stroked his cheek again, smoothing the lines from around his eyes with the pad of her thumb.

"Jon," she began, "we have been through more than most of the people in this world. We've done the impossible, not once, but over and over. We have fought and sacrificed. The world is a hard place, and we've had to become hard people to survive in it. No, not just survive, but to rule in it. Most people never receive a chance like the one we've been given."

"The chance to rule kingdoms?"

"The chance to love, Jon, and not just that, but to love in a… a pure way. Not because you do anything for me, or flatter me. I love you because I can trust you. You are precisely what you say you are, and you say precisely what you'll do, and then you _do_ it.

"And I love your sweetness, how you've managed to retain it in spite of the ugliness you've seen. Somehow, you've never let it embitter you. You inspire me to try to find that same sweetness within myself. I had thought it gone forever, but when I'm with you, I wonder… I think… maybe there's a little left.

"And I hope you love me the same way," she continued. "Not because of how I make you feel or what I can do for you, but because there is enough to admire in me that sustains your affection."

Jon dragged in a breath before pressing his mouth to hers, kissing her as if it would save his life. It was a clumsy kiss, an unpracticed kiss. He did not conquer her as Drago had, and he didn't seduce as Daario had. No, he simply offered her himself, all of himself, with all his artless, genuine heart.

"I love your strength," he blurted when the kiss ended. "I've never seen such determination. All I've accomplished has been reluctant— someone had to do it, and it fell to me. If I didn't do it, it wouldn't get done. But you knew what you wanted, and made it happen, against every odd. Sometimes, I think you might be magical, even more magical than your dragons, because you make things happen, impossible things.

"And you made me fall in love with you so quickly. I'm a cautious man, Dany, not one who rushes into things, so that's… that's something. That's a lot."

Dany touched her lips to his, a gossamer-light touch that sent little shocks down her limbs. She clenched her hands together to keep them from shaking with fear.

"You're rather magical, yourself, then, Jon Snow, because it only took me a short while, as well. And you know what I've endured, what I've seen. What's been done to me. I've built up walls around myself, for protection. I've learned not to trust anyone or anything but myself. But you smashed past all those walls and found me, just me.

"And now I'm to give that up, because of one thing we had nothing to do with, one thing we can't control or change? How can you ask that of me? Or of yourself?"

"Dany," he said, despairing. "Dany, I don't know what to do."

"Does anyone else know who your parents are?"

"No one else. Just Lord Reed, me, and now you."

"Then let's pretend it doesn't exist. Let's pretend that you're just the son of Eddard Stark and some tavern wench, and that my dragons love you because _I_ love you. No one else needs to know, so they won't. Lord Reed will take it to his grave, and so shall we."

Jon looked like he was weakening, like he wanted so much to agree with her, and she felt that ache of admiration in her chest for him yet again, because his innately honest nature and strong convictions were fighting him still, even in the face of how much he wanted to give in.

"I know it's a lot to ask," Dany continued, feeling desperation race through her, making her hands cold. "I understand what kind of sacrifice you'd be making. But… it would be just this once. I vow it. No other lies, no other pretenses. Just this one compromise, so we can have the joy we know is there for the taking. Because consider this, my darling. If you cannot get past this, if we part, you'll spend your life up in your drafty castle, and I'll spend my time down here, in that stinking mess of a city.

"Eventually, we'll each have to marry. I would have to live with the knowledge that you were bedding another, and not even because you loved her, but out of obligation. When you deserve so much more than a dutiful weekly fuck, Jon, just to get an heir. You deserve someone who will make love to you because she— because _I_ — want you so fiercely.

"And I deserve the same, don't I? I deserve, not someone who wants to make an alliance in spite of the fact that I scare him senseless, but someone who feels like they'll die if they don't get to have me. I don't want to have to use my body to cement a promise, Jon, unless it's a promise I'm making to _you_ , to be with you always.

"Please don't throw this away, my love. I will beg you, if I must." She joined him in kneeling on the ground. "Please don't make us spend the rest of our days apart. Please don't make us have to find a way to live without each other. Not for this, not for something so stupid."

They stared at each other for long moments, so long Dany felt like they might never end. She hoped… oh, she hoped. She hoped that he'd absorbed some of her practicality in the face of his idealism, some of the comprehension that reality quite often functioned in a gray area instead of his preferred black and white. She hoped he understood that sometimes compromises meant sacrificing the letter of a principle while still adhering to its intent.

"I cannot do it," Jon groaned at last, and her heart sank, right to her feet.

 _Oh, gods,_ she thought miserably, and felt herself drooping forward into a natural protective slump as her strength began to wane. _I should have known he could not do it. I should have known he was not able to put aside everything Ned Stark had instilled in him, it_ _'_ _s this innate goodness that makes me love him so, I can't even blame him—_

"I cannot let you go." He took her face in his hands, raising her from her fetal curl to kiss her, then pulled her into his arms and buried his face in her hair. Dany let out the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. She felt shaky and weak, limp with relief.

"Thank you, my love, my Jon," she whispered into his ear. "You have saved us from such misery."

"I hope so," he whispered back. "I hope so."


	21. Chapter 21

**Author's Note:** I just made a frenzied Tumblr post about how I have already written a half-dozen of the plot points that are occurring in the show. If you'd like to check it out, it's hardlyfatal dot tumblr dot com. Hit me up.

Thanks for your reviews, hope you like this chapter :)

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Dany's earlier hopes of intimacy with Jon sputtered out, after that. They were exhausted, both from traveling and Jon's revelation of his parentage. She dismissed the serving girls who had waited by her door to assist her with readying for bed. Jon unbuckled and unpinned and untied until she was released from her gown, and then she returned the favor, peeling the close-fitting jerkin and pants from him while ardently wishing she had the energy to do what she wished with his fine, strong body. Judging by the look on his face when she stood before him, nude, he was wishing the same, but only gave a weary sigh.

"Tomorrow will be difficult," Dany murmured into his chest once they were under the heavy damask quilt, curled around each other. "Plans to make, ravens to send."

"We'll do it," he replied sleepily. "But our Hands are smart men; we probably won't even be needed."

"Perhaps we'll be able to snatch some time to ourselves, then," she commented, and circled his nipple with her fingertip.

He tensed under her, and she felt him begin to harden against her hip. Then his hand smoothed over her backside, cupping one cheek before giving it a firm squeeze. Heat pushed past her fatigue, and she shifted to kiss him, her lips teasing his until they parted.

"I wanted our first time to be good," Jon murmured between kisses down her throat. "Not something half-asleep like this."

It did not last long; they were too tired to spend long moments exploring and arousing each other as they might have wished. But Dany was feeling rather desperately in need of a way to express her relief that Jon would not be ending them before they had begun, and if his fervor were any indication, he needed the same.

When it was over, they lay there, panting and astonished.

"If you think that was a poor first time between us," Dany said when she could breathe properly again, "I don't think I'll survive what you would call a good time."

"Turns out, I can be wrong sometimes," he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice. "I don't feel like I'm betraying Ygritte," he continued, more soberly. "I think she'd want me happy."

"Drogo wouldn't," Dany said. "He'd want me pining over him forever. And I thought I would be." She stretched up to kiss him again. "You've given me more than you realize, Jon."

He slid his hands up her back, gathering her hair in his hands and spreading it around them as she'd noticed he enjoyed doing. "No more than I've received from you."

He did not see how, though he had given himself to her freely, with all the warmth of his generous soul, she had fought against the danger he posed to her heart. He did not know that she had relinquished hers only grudgingly, helplessly, unable to keep it in her own chest when it rightfully belonged to him.

She wondered, sometimes, what he could possibly find in her to love, but she was not above taking what he gave her, even if she did not deserve it. She was a dragon, and dragons did not scruple when riches fell into their laps. Nor did they quail before the challenge of regaining a treasure stolen from them.

Jon had fallen asleep; good. They had much to decide in the morning, about how to regain her kingdoms, and then protect them from the threat to the North.

They woke late the next morning, and had to endure the knowing looks from their respective advisors, but Dany felt it was well worth it. They separated briefly, to bathe and dress, then had lunch and repaired to the map room to discuss tactics and strategy, now that everyone knew what they were up against and united in their commitment to battle it.

The first order of business was logistics, and timing: all agreed that in order to focus on the Night King and his army of ghouls, they would have to eliminate Cersei, and quickly. Dany proposed hitting King's Landing hard and soon, a decisive strike that disregarded matters of collateral damage.

Jon was grim as he considered this, pacing back and forth in front of the windows, his brow furrowed.

"What if… what if… you demanded Cersei's surrender? If she knows that you're no longer looking to preserve King's Landing, that not only is her army in danger of defeat but her own life is at stake as well, perhaps she'll…"

His words faded away as he took in the expressions of everyone around him. Missandei and Davos were sympathetic to his hope Cersei could see reason; Tyrion and Varys were openly pitying of his naivety. Dany admired his dogged pursuit to protect as many innocents as possible, even while she knew it was pointless, and that waiting for Cersei's inevitable rejection would be a waste of time.

"I say we offer to accept her surrender, but still make ready to invade the city," she said. "That way, if she actually accepts, we'll be pleasantly surprised, but if she does not, we'll also be pleasantly prepared."

It was the best compromise she could think of, to satisfy Jon's need to at least try to save the city's residents.

Tyrion drew an impatient breath, but held his tongue. Varys was expressionless, but she knew he had an opinion, and suspected it was not a positive one.

"That… could work?" said Davos, more a question than a statement.

"I worry that, if Cersei is as… formidable an opponent as Lords Tyrion and Varys have stated," Missandei said, "a demand for surrender might…" She trailed away, not wanting to be offensive with plain speaking.

Tyrion had no such fear. "Push her over the edge she has been teetering on for years?" he said. "Tragically, I can see that being the case. Now that her children are gone—" sorrow flitted across his scarred face for the niece and nephew he'd lost and still mourned "—she has nothing to lose."

"But her other brother is there, is he not?" Jon asked, unable to imagine a person not wanting to protect their sibling. "Surely she would want to save him, at the very least."

Tyrion tsked. "As far as Cersei is concerned, Jaime is no more than an… avatar of herself. A barely autonomous creature who exists to do her bidding. She'd not only be fine with his dying alongside her, she'd insist upon it."

Jon grimaced, clearly disgusted and shocked. Dany was beginning to see how Ned Stark had ended up dead; he had raised his children to be as honorable and trusting and genuine as he himself was, and that had been a grave error. Such people had no way to survive in a world where treachery abounded and familial bonds meant little. She was very relieved he had her, now, to keep him safe.

"So we have an additional perk, if the impossible happens and Cersei surrenders," Davos said. "The salvation of Ser Jaime."

"Only to be executed after the fact," muttered Tyrion. When no one replied, he said, "As if you'd let him live, after the role he has played in… in everything. From the beginning. From before the beginning. Even I know it would be foolish to let him live."

But it was clear the idea bothered him. Dany knew he loved his brother, and since there were few people Tyrion actually cared about more than himself, it would be a grievous loss for him. But he was not wrong; how could she leave Jaime alive, after all he had done to support Cersei and foment dissent and disruption in Westeros. As long as there were any sort of figurehead who could be used to rally support behind, her rule would never be truly secure.

Speaking of figureheads…

"I wish to make use of the Vale's army," she said, and looked at Jon. "Will Clegane bring them if I command it?"

Tyrion's face crumpled into a ferocious scowl. "You cannot possibly be speaking of Sandor Clegane? How is he in charge of the Vale's troops?"

"He is at Winterfell, and apparently in love with my sister," said Jon. "He'd have to be, to agree to her mad scheme to bring him up to snuff."

Tyrion stared at him. "Your sister… as in my wife? My wife Sansa? He's—" He stopped. "But of course he is. I had suspected he wanted her, the way he was always prowling about in her vicinity… and that time I caught them holding hands on the serpentine…" He sighed. "What about a mad scheme? Up to snuff?"

"She wants to marry him. But she knows there'd be an uproar if a Stark married down so far. So she's for getting him recognition in the war, to raise him up enough for her."

Tyrion blinked, clearly struggling to assimilate it all. "But Baelish will never agree to it," he said at last. "He's had designs on Sansa, himself, since—"

"Baelish is dead," said Jon flatly, "and good riddance."

Eyebrows were raised all around the room at this uncharacteristic show of vehemence.

"And so, with Robert Arryn lacking an agent to act on his behalf, and the Vale's men needing a captain, at Lady Sansa's request, I named him Lord Protector," said Dany. "I do not expect him to endure long in this role. It's clear he does not have the temperament. But if he can last long enough for my purposes, I will be satisfied."

"And what are your purposes, Your Grace?" asked Missandei while Tyrion fumed in silence.

"To recall as many troops as possible and amass them around the perimeter of King's Landing. If Cersei does not present herself in surrender by that time, we will pervade the city and rout her out. I am confident my Unsullied and Dothraki will suffice in numbers, but it would be nice to have even more soldiers to ensure a speedy victory."

"You'll have the men of the North, too," said Jon, his voice quiet.

Davos, alarmed, took a step toward his king. "Jon— Your Grace—"

"It's in our best interest, Davos," Jon said hotly. He planted his hands on the map table and stared at his Hand across it. "It was going to happen anyway. I told you last night— Cersei was bringing the fight to us. She's sending troops to White Harbor. We were going to have to battle her eventually. I'm just bringing the fight to her, instead. And instead of how we thought it would be— the North against all the rest of Westeros— it will be us, plus all of Dany's men. The sooner we solve the problem in the south, the sooner we can turn our attention to the problem in the North."

They stood and looked at each other, all of them, for a long, tense moment, until Davos gave a slow nod.

"We'll have to leave troops in place around White Harbor," he said. "But now's a good time to strike, with a third of her forces stuck in ships halfway up the sea. And if you can get her to surrender before they make land, you'll have those troops to use against the White Walkers, too."

"How long will it take to get the Vale's men here?" Dany asked.

"Any coming from The Eyrie will take two and a half weeks," said Tyrion, "From Winterfell, a month. If they set a very brisk pace."

"I'll send a raven to Winterfell," said Davos, "that they're to leave right away." At Jon's nod, he left the room in a purposeful stride.

"I have misgivings about this," Tyrion intoned gravely. "You don't know Cersei as I do. She will take offense at the demand for surrender. She will run mad."

"It seems to me as if she takes offense at everything," Dany said, "and I am not particularly concerned about her mood or sanity. We won't send the raven to her until we're almost outside the gates of King's Landing, thus giving her as little time as possible to plot some sort of dread response."

Tyrion stomped out, muttering.

"I will let my little birds know to alert us if there is any word of Cersei's plans," said Varys, and bowed before leaving.

Missandei soon excused herself as well, leaving Dany with Jon. She went to him immediately, feeling her weariness with planning battles fall away with his embrace.

"A raven was waiting for me when we got back," he said. "Davos only gave it to me this morning. It's from my old friend from the Night Watch, Sam Tarly. He says that there's a huge cache of dragonglass in the rock of this island, under the very castle itself."

"Yes?"

"Dragonglass and Valyrian steel are the only two things I've seen that can kill a White Walker. I'd like your permission to begin mining it, so it can be used in weapons. We'll have to outfit every man in our armies with a weapon tipped in dragonglass. The sooner we can get it to the blacksmiths, they can begin forging."

And time was of the essence.

"Of course," she said. "Whatever is needed; take it all. I'll have our blacksmiths begin, as well, and men to help mining it. The Unsullied will be glad to have something to do, I think. They've been bored and can't pass the time coupling with each other as the Dothraki do."

That surprised Jon into a smile.

"Speaking of which…" he murmured. "I'm not tired at all, today. I expect I'll be feeling quite myself tonight."

"Funny you say that," Dany replied, unable to keep her own silly smile off her face. "I was thinking how well-rested I am today, as well. I might not need to sleep at all tonight."

Jon leaned down, or perhaps she stretched up, but then they were kissing, gently, softly, in no rush.

"I've been thinking about your brother," she said when they surfaced.

"Bran?"

She nodded. "And what he said about the curse. I think I know what it means."

"I've been thinking about it, too. It's made sense ever since I spoke with Howland Reed."

"It means I can have children again, Jon," she said. "And I want to, so much. With you."

"I know you do. I think about a baby with your eyes, all the time," he replied. He brushed a thumb over her eyebrow, then her cheekbone.

Love for him twisted in her belly. "I see them all with your hair," said Dany, smiling so much her cheeks hurt.

"All?" Jon looked startled. "How many were you planning on?"

"As many as we can manage."

He brushed his lips over her cheek. "We're still young. We could probably manage a lot."

"I'm counting on it."

He was silent, holding her, staring out the window distractedly. She waited, knowing he'd speak when he was ready.

"But it worries me, Dany."

She knew why.

"I am, too," she admitted. "But Bran said that this could be the last time. Doesn't it seem, then, as if our children would be fine, but they can't… repeat the process, ever again?"

"We'll have to put laws in place," Jon said. "It cannot be allowed again. The only way I can bear it is because you and I met as adults. If any of our children, raised together…" He shuddered against her. "It cannot happen, Dany."

She knew he was right. She'd seen Viserys' madness, been the victim of it, and knew enough of her father's, to see the folly of such a practice. It had been done to ensure only the 'best' stock in the royal family, but without any fresh blood infusing the line, her ancestors had become progressively more volatile, with the specter of the madness that haunted them creeping out of the shadows more and more frequently with each generation.

"We'll pass whatever laws you feel necessary," she agreed. "And if any of our children show signs of being… unwell… we'll strike them from the order of succession. But we're going to raise them well, Jon. Not to look at each other in that way. And not the way we were raised, despised as outcastes. They'll grow up with love, in a family, knowing they belong and are safe."

"Safety won't be ours for a while, though, Dany," he told her, his face earnest. "Even after Cersei is gone, and you're established on the throne, we have the Night King to defeat. Only once that is done can we think of beginning a family. It's too dangerous, for you to be expecting in the middle of a war."

She nodded slowly, frustrated that the hope and wish she'd begun to foster in her heart ever since they'd left Winterfell would have to be delayed, perhaps for years. "I'll take moon tea every morning."

He held her close once more, his hand cupping the back of her head and his cheek resting on her hair. "Thank you. I know it will be hard for you to wait. For me, too. There's little I want more than to see you carrying our child."

He slid a hand down, to rest flat on her belly.

"You might eat those words, once it actually happens. I was a horrible tyrant, when I carried Rhaego," she told him, grinning. "Demanding. With the strangest cravings. And puffy ankles. And—"

"It sounds terrifying," Jon said, laughing. "Did I say to wait until after the war? Let's wait longer than that."

She slapped his shoulder and gave his a stern glare but he just kept laughing, and oh, he was beautiful when he laughed. Dany found herself grinning back at him, stupidly pleased she'd amused him.

"Ahem," Davos said, giving a very unconvincing cough to alert them to his presence.

"Yes, Ser Davos?" Jon said, his mirth fading to a smile.

"I've had a raven before I could send one," his Hand said. "From your lady sister."


	22. Chapter 22

**Author's Note:** Thank you to everyone for your kind reviews, I'm glad (most of) you continue to enjoy it :D

I am going to take a little hiatus with this story so I can concentrate on getting out my latest fic, The Book of Love. This just means I will likely only be posting once a week or so until it's done, rather than the once or twice a day I've been doing up until now. I **will** be finishing this story, just not as rapidly as it might have seemed.

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* * *

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Arya spent a very boring week attending Cersei. She noted that few delicate conversations were had within her earshot, and knew the queen was taking no more chances of spies overhearing her. Cersei was meeting with her advisors and conspirators in private. Which meant Arya had to find a way to discover and infiltrate the meetings.

So when Cersei dismissed her, she'd wriggle her way into the secret passages she'd found all those years ago, while chasing cats for Syrio Forel, and eavesdrop. It was not easy; she had grown in the intervening five years, and passages she'd formerly slipped along with ease she now had to squeeze through.

But it worked. Very well, in fact; she could hear Cersei and Qyburn as clearly as if she were in the room with them.

She wished she could not.

Because they were discussing ways of destroying King's Landing.

All of it.

Cersei's intelligence team had reported that Northern troops were headed down the Kingsroad. Invasion seemed imminent. Half of her army was stuffed into Euron Greyjoy's fleet, with no way to contact him and direct their return until they made land and found a maester and his ravens. Contingencies had to be planned. The queen was determined that any victory by Daenerys Targaryen would be hard-won and very, very costly.

She was also, Arya learned, enamored of the irony of depriving a Targaryen of her capital in the way her mad father had almost done: with wildfire.

"The Targaryen whore might be able to withstand fire," Cersei said, venom in her voice, "but the city and its people can't. She might take King's Landing, but it will be nothing more than three hills of cinders and ash. Worthless. _Less_ than worthless; a farmer won't be able to grow anything on the land for a thousand years. It will be a blight on the surface of Westeros, and a reminder that Lannisters _always_ pay their debts. Sometimes ahead of time."

"Indeed, Your Grace," came Qybyrn's voice, dry and brittle, like old sticks. "The alchemists are working day and night to create enough wildfire for the entire city, and the Red Keep in particular. It will take twice as much as was used for the Sept of Baelor."

"They had best hurry," replied Cersei. "You have said that the Northern forces will be here in under two weeks."

Two weeks? Things were progressing quickly. Arya crept from the passageway back to the public area of the keep and made her way to the seamstress shop, where she was supposed to have gone to deliver instructions for the creation of yet another black dress with silver trim for the queen.

Her mind raced as she tried to not only process all she had heard, but of potential ways to counter it. Arya was used to, had been trained to, deal with small and surreptitious matters. Setting an entire city on fire was the very opposite of small and surreptitious. The extent of the loss of life shocked her; she had trouble comprehending a loss of life on that scale.

What disturbed her the most, however, was when she realized that her main objection to it all was not necessarily the idea of so many dying, but of the lack of resources. Resources that would be needed by Jon and the North when the time came to fight the White Walkers. All the people of King's Landing, all the food and supplies and weapons… they were needed. Desperately. Every scrap was going to have to be pressed into duty, if they were to defeat an army of undead creatures. The waste of it all could— probably would— spell defeat.

She had to do something. She had to prevent it. She had no idea how to even begin.

And she only had two weeks.

Arya broached the subject with Gendry; she knew it was a long shot, but if he'd learned to forge Valyrian steel in the intervening years, perhaps he'd also acquired the ability to plan out a cunning strategy to counter Cersei's mad plan.

It became clear, after only a few minutes' discussion, that he had not.

"Short of killing the mad bitch," Gendry said, his face still pale in reaction to hearing Arya's description of the plan, "I don't see how you can stop it."

"That's something else," Arya said, feeling her spirits sink lower still. "I've been thinking about it. I considered it. But there's no one left to inherit. No one left to rule. No authority for everyone to obey, for the peace to be kept in the city. In the entire kingdom. Without some sort of king or queen, there will be panic. Riots, looting."

"But Daenerys will rule," he protested.

"Only once she finds out and gets here. Who's going to let her know? She has spies here, I'm sure, but it'll still take them a while to get the news to her, and another while for her to arrive. That could take a week. Longer. In a week, King's Landing could be just as badly off as if they _did_ set the wildfire off."

"What if you killed her, and, y'know…" He waved his hand over his face.

"Pretended to be her?" Arya pondered it for a moment. "Thought about that, too. But I'm not sure I could fake it well enough to fool her brother."

Gendry peered at her. "Isn't he the brother who killed the Targaryen king? To keep him from doing the same thing? If he'd become a kingslayer to save the city—"

"Kingslayer is one thing," said Arya, "but _kin_ slayer is another. And she's not just any kin, she's his twin. And the mother of his children." She grimaced with revulsion at the idea. "Then again, when we went to the dungeons… he was horrified by what Cersei had done to those Dornish women. And he went against Cersei to give the mother the gift of mercy. _And_ he was unhappy to learn she had killed her maid."

"So he's aware that she's mad as a bessie bug?"

"I think he has to be. Unless he's just as mad, which I don't think he is." Brienne could not care for a madman, Arya felt sure.

"Maybe you and he could… work together? To stop her?"

Arya stared at him. She'd been wondering the same thing, had dismissed it as ludicrous, but… perhaps not? She knew she couldn't solve this conundrum by herself. And that Gendry was not going to be able to do much to help besides what he'd already done by giving suggestions and feedback.

She thought back to Brienne, not only to their lengthy conversation but also her adamant protestations of Jaime's reliability. She had seen something worthwhile in him, something salvageable. Something good enough that she could love, in spite of his problematic history. And Brienne was no easily-duped maiden easily swayed by golden hair and a rakish smile. It would take real substance to engage her more tender emotions, substance Jaime apparently had but kept dormant. Arya had to awaken it.

Because she didn't think she could save King's Landing without him.

.

* * *

.

Several days later, Cersei dismissed Arya so she could once again meet in private with Qyburn. Arya curtsied, left at a calm pace, and then pelted to the hidden passageway so she could overhear them.

"…and I've had word that men are being ferried from Dragonstone to Sharp Point, garrisoned there and at Stonedance."

 _It_ _'_ _s beginning,_ Arya thought, and wondered what Jon would be doing. Would he side with the dragon queen? Would be help Daenerys take King's Landing in exchange for her participation against the White Walkers?

She had a chilling thought: _what if he came to the city himself?_ What if he were here when the wildfire was ignited? Fear flashed through her; irrational, she knew, since he'd risked his life many times in the past and would do it again countless times in the future. But there was nothing she could do to, if not keep him out of danger, then minimize the risks to him in those situations.

Here, this time, she could.

She _would_.

"They won't act before the Northern army arrives," Cersei was saying.

"Doubtful," Qyburn agreed.

A pause, while they pondered implications.

"So we have plenty of time to put the wildfire not only around the city, but outside the walls," Cersei said thoughtfully.

"To take out as many of the invading forces as possible?" Qyburn sounded intrigued.

"Indeed."

"Inspired, Your Grace," Qyburn purred. "I will see it done."

"What about the machine?" Cersei inquired. "Is it complete and ready for use?"

"Yes, Your Grace," her master of whispers replied, "and a second in the process of being built as well."

"Excellent," replied the queen. "Notify me when it is complete."

Silence; then, faintly, Arya heard a door slam, and she knew that Qyburn had gone and Cersei would soon be howling for her maid's presence. She scampered out of the secret passage, slapped off as best she could the cobwebs and dust that clung to her skirts, and made for the queen's suite of rooms. She arrived before Cersei and pretended to be checking her wardrobe for garments in need of repair when the queen arrived.

"Your Grace," she murmured with a curtsy.

"I want to dress for dinner," Cersei announced.

"Black with silver tonight, Your Grace, or silver with black?" Arya asked blandly.

Cersei spun around and fixed her with a beady eye. "Is that a joke?"

Arya plastered an innocent, guileless expression on her face. "No, Your Grace, never. I just thought tonight you might like this one—" she held up a silver brocade gown with elegant black embroidery "—rather than this one." She gestured to where another, black damask with complicated silver frogging, hung ready to be worn.

The queen narrowed her eyes at Arya, still undecided if she were being mocked, but eventually was satisfied she was being treated with all appropriate deference.

"The silver," she snapped, and turned her back to be unlaced from her current gown.

Once Cersei had been laced and buckled and tied into the silver gown, jewelry of ebony and jet gleaming at ears, throat, and wrists, she left to have dinner with the obsequious fools comprising her court.

And Arya turned herself into one of the many anonymous guards, and went exploring.

She made her way to the cellars and found the ballista referred to in the note Jaime Lannister had sent to Brienne. The bolt was as thick as her forearm, and she shuddered to think of the destruction it could wreak. She wondered if she could sabotage the machine, and examined it as closely as she could in the dim torchlight, but it was made of stout oak and solid iron. If there were a way, it escaped her.

The next day, when she had a few hours away from Cersei's supper, she went to the alchemist's guild, wearing the visage of an old beggar woman, and loitered until one of the apprentices began to torment her for laughs. She shuffled backwards into an alley, pretending to try to escape him, and predictably, he followed, thinking to have some more fun. She killed him, feeling his loss was no real loss at all, and took his face.

Once within the guildhall, she prowled around, listening and observing. The air bristled with the stink of pungent herbs and caustic acids, and Arya was hard-pressed to keep from sneezing, but eventually her efforts paid off: the conversation she'd overheard between Cersei and Qyburn was confirmed. The guild had had to recruit a dozen new apprentices in order to fill their queen's demand to have enough to blow King's Landing to all seven hells. And as Qyburn had stated, they and all the alchemists were working on twelve-hour shifts, both night and day, to produce the massive quantities that would be needed to raze the city to the ground.

She left the guildhall with great relief and turned back into the beggar woman to make her way across town to Flea Bottom and the room she shared with Gendry. He was already there, stirring last night's leftover stew around a dented pot in the tiny fireplace.

"Ah, there you are!" His face lit up to see her, even though she looked like a toothless crone. Gendry had an unerring ability to know who she was, no matter which face she wore. Arya refused to think too long about what that meant; every time she did, fear welled in her chest and she developed a nigh-irresistible urge to run as far from him as she could.

"Have some dinner?" he continued, holding out to her he bowl he'd just filled for himself.

"No time," she said. "Just wanted to let you know that I won't be back until very late. Might not be back at all, until tomorrow night, in fact."

Gendry frowned, opening his mouth, doubtless to protest, but then stopped and just looked at her. Eventually, he said, "Alright. Be careful."

He always told her to be careful, when he already _knew_ she was careful. It never failed to vex her, which of course was why he did it. She scowled; he laughed. She left.

"Try to get some sleep tonight," he called after her. She just raised a hand to him as she went.

Back at the keep, she became a red cloak until she reached the royal floor, then Tebathi, the personal maid of the queen, once more. She searched Cersei's suite for anything she might be able to use against the queen, but without success. If Cersei had any incriminating information or evidence, she was keeping it better-hidden than even Arya could find.

Finally, the queen returned, tipsy and swaying and relying on a guard to hold her upright.

"No, don't go," she simpered as the guard, tall and well-formed, made to take his leave. "I am going to need guarding alllll night long."

The guard looked more resigned than surprised, Arya noted, and felt a little bad for him. But he duly waited while she helped the queen shed her clothing. Arya had quite the job, undressing Cersei, but finally the silver gown and jewelry had been stripped off and the queen collapsed into her bed. She crooked her finger to the guard and Arya made a hasty escape while the poor man obeyed his liege.

Outside, she nodded to the guards flanking the door and walked away at a measured pace. Once she was out of sight, she went to the nearest entrance to the secret passageways and found her way to her destination. Once just outside the room, she shucked her outermost layer. Under it was something thinner, silkier… a sensual confection designed to seduce. This was not going to be pleasant— for either of them- but it had to be done.

She removed Tebathi's face and assumed that of a beautiful whore from Braavos. Poor girl had been killed by a too-rough customer; now, Arya was to benefit from her death. She smoothed the whore's beautiful long chestnut hair over her plump breasts, then the satin gown over her lissome figure, and tugged open the panel that would permit her entrance to the bedchamber.

With a last deep breath, hoping desperately she was doing the right thing, she slipped into Jaime Lannister's room.

The bed, across the chamber, was a lordly thing: tall enough to need a tiny set of steps to climb up to it, and bracketed by tall posts supporting a velvet-swagged canopy. The lord himself was flat on his back in the center of the huge mattress, the coverlet pulled up to his waist, leaving his bare chest exposed. Moonlight streamed in from the nearest window, limning his elegant profile with silver. For a moment, she just stood there and appreciated his male beauty, and understood what might have captured Brienne's interest in the first place.

 _Too bad he was so old,_ she thought, and stalked closer.

Very carefully, barely breathing, she climbed onto the bed and unsheathed Bodkin. In one swift move she straddled him, put her hand over his mouth, and placed Bodkin's naked point under his chin. He jolted, his mouth opening and his eyes wide. His arms, pinned by her knees, thrashed.

"Don't move," she whispered, "and keep quiet, or you die."

Jaime went still and stared up at her in astonishment. "Who are you?" he said softly.

"Someone who needs you to be the honorable man I know you can be," Arya replied. She very much hoped that was the case, at least, and desperately hoped Brienne's instincts were solid and she wasn't making an enormous mistake.

That appeared to surprise him.

"What do you want from me?"

"What would you do if I told you that your sister was planning to do what you killed Aerys to prevent?"

Laying over him as she was, Arya could feel his breath catch.

"That can't be true."

"It is true. I overheard her and Qyburn discussing it earlier. I explored the alchemists' guildhall and listened. They're preparing enough wildfire to turn King's Landing into a smoking crater."

"She wouldn't do that."

 _Gods save her from men determined to deny the truth right before their eyes._

"How much longer will you pretend your sister has not become a monster?" she demanded. "You saw what she did to the Dornish women. You heard her talk about setting Ser Robert on that septa. You know what he would have done to her. _Cersei_ knows what Ser Robert would have done."

Surprised, he studied her face, barely visible in the moonlight. "How do— you— but only the—"

"Yes, that was me."

"How?"

She grinned, a feral little slice of teeth. "This isn't my real face, either."


	23. Chapter 23

"Don't waste our limited time trying to figure out who I am," Arya told Jaime. "Focus, man. Your sister is planning on killing every person in this city when Daenerys Targaryen marches on it, and I want to know what you're going to do about it."

Now his eyes narrowed. "You'll forgive me, I'm sure, if I have failed to have a plan already prepared. I wasn't expecting the pleasure of your company this evening, nor the nature of your demand."

Arya grinned down at him. She could see how a man who looked like this, and had that kind of sarcastic wit, would dazzle a woman like the stoic Brienne.

"I'm a reasonable woman," she said, "so yes, I'll forgive that lapse. But you must think about it. We must devise a plan to keep her from going through with it, or else we— and everyone else— will be dead in two weeks."

"Two weeks?" His haughty expression shifted to one of alertness. She could practically see his ears twitch like Nymeria's had at the sound of a rabbit in the underbrush.

Arya nodded. "That's when the Northern army is expected to arrive."

"The North marches against us?" He seemed surprised.

"She didn't even tell you that much?" Arya was starting to feel sorry for him. "You're the lord commander of her forces. If she's not sharing even that information with you, she must really have no intention of fighting anymore."

She dropped her head to his chest, for just a moment, as a wave of emotional weariness rolled over her. "I am sick to death of dealing with lunatics," she muttered, thinking of Gendry and his unreasonable persistence in courting her, and Sansa's affection for the Hound, and Jaime's baffling devotion to a woman who was cracked in the head. "Why can no one make sense?"

"Can you have your existential crisis somewhere else?" he demanded, grouchy. "You're not as light as you look."

"No. Have you accepted, yet, that your mad sister has been keeping secrets from you, is planning on killing you and a few thousand others, and is generally not someone you should be trying to support and protect? You killed Aerys because he was going to do the exact same thing. You did it because you knew it was wrong, what he wanted. You couldn't let it happen. There is honor in you, Jaime Lannister. Let this be the time you act with your conscience, not against it."

He stared at her. "What did you say?"

Arya huffed. "Let this be the time—"

"No, before that."

"That there is honor in you?"

"Yes." He seemed shaken.

"What is it?"

A muscle ticked in his jaw. "Someone else once said that to me. Not too long ago. She…"

Arya's ears perked. "She what?"

"She believes me to be a better man than I actually am."

"Ah," said Arya. "Brienne."

He jolted beneath her, his entire body actually twitching in surprise. "How—"

"I know her. And I know it was you who sent her the warning about White Harbor, and the ballista."

He was starting to look… frightened, almost. "Who are you?"

Arya considered for several long moments. Then: "Close your eyes." When he did, she peeled the whore's face off. "Open them."

When he did, he frowned in concentration, finding her familiar, trying to place her.

"Those are Ned Stark's eyes," he murmured at last. "Arya Stark."

"The same. I was in Winterfell recently, and was there when Brienne received your raven."

"How is she?" The lines of tension softened in his face, and the faint curl of his lips was almost… tender. Yep, Podrick had been right: they were in love and didn't even realize it. Idiots.

"She's very upset that her ridiculously stupid friend is supporting his maniac of a sister," she said bluntly. "She's worried about him. Stares off into space and frowns while we're sparring and lets me kick her arse, which is bloody dangerous and which I hope she won't do when she gets here and has to fight."

"She's coming here?"

"Might be. Could be. She's in charge of the men when Jon's away."

"Where is Jon?"

Arya scoffed. "As if I'd tell you."

He grinned. "Can't blame me for trying."

"I can blame you for anything I want."

His grin faded. "She can't come here," he said. "If what you've said is true, and wildfire will be lit all around the city—"

"Brienne will get blown to bits, yes," Arya confirmed. "We all will."

"You don't have to be." His keen gaze seemed to bore into her. "You know it's happening; you can leave before then."

She rolled her eyes. "Did you ever actually speak to my father? Know anything about him at all? A Stark would never abandon anyone needing help, especially tens of thousands of anyones. I'm going to do what I can to stop Cersei, and I'm not leaving until I do. If I can't… we'll all go up in flames together."

He stared at her again, this time in wonder. "How old are you?"

She was thrown by the question for a moment. "Sixteen," she said at last. "Why?"

"You remind me of myself when I killed Aerys," he said. "I was seventeen." He gave a bitter laugh. "I was so… young. Idealistic. Dreaming of impossible things."

"Burdened with a choice no seventeen-year-old should have to make," Arya added, feeling a pang for him. "A terrible choice: kill your king, or save a city. You knew what had to be done then. You know what needs to be done now."

For a moment, she pitied him, and hated herself for doing this to him. But she had no alternative. She would not be able to do it alone.

"I can't," he said, his eyes begging her to understand. "I can't betray her like that. I can't."

Arya felt like her head was going to explode off her neck. She whisper-shouted at him. "She does not care about you! She's fucking a guard right this moment, while you keep defending her! She's a coward, and spiteful, and cruel, and greedy, and selfish! She does not deserve this kind of loyalty! And if you think she does, then you don't deserve Brienne's!"

He jerked under her again, as if she'd struck him. Then he closed his eyes. Soon, tears leaked out each side, running down his temples to dampen the pillow beneath his head.

Arya felt awful, and irritated, and tired. It had to be two o'clock in the morning, and Cersei would expect her to be ready with iced wine and headache powders when she rose in the morning.

"Alright," he said at last, so softly she could barely hear him. "Alright."

"I'm… I'm sorry," she said awkwardly. "I know what it's like when you're disappointed by someone you love." She didn't, not really, but Jaime's despair had woken such a sense of pity in her that she felt compelled to try to comfort him somehow. She scowled, feeling angry with herself— how could she sympathize with such a man?

Her acute hearing picked up the rattle of the door handle.

"Someone's coming," she breathed into his ear.

"It's her," he whispered back. "She has a key."

Arya swiped her hand over her face to put back the whore's visage.

A key scraped in the lock. The door opened.

Arya began to move her hands over Jaime's bare chest. He made a startled noise. Arya growled a warning and he schooled his features from alarmed to a near-facsimile of aroused. Well, not unaroused. He looked as aroused as she felt, which was not at all, but she'd take what she could get.

Cersei entered, the contours of her face and body highlighted by the hallway's torchlight for just a moment before she shut the door. Arya began to kiss Jaime's neck and hum as if enjoying herself, keeping her head positioned so she could see the queen from the corner of her eye.

Cersei sauntered to the bed, coming to an abrupt halt when she noticed Jaime was not alone in it. He had closed his eyes and slid his handless arm around her waist, as if pressing her closer. His other hand was on the one she had been roaming over his belly and looked very much like he was urging her to grope lower.

"Who is this?" the queen hissed, and both Arya and Jaime did a credible pretense of jumping in surprise.

Jaime shot his sister a lazy grin, then looked at Arya. "I don't think I got your name, darling," he purred.

"Sica," Arya cooed back. "Make sure you remember, so you can ask for me again."

"Sica," he repeated, his gaze heavy-lidded as he stared at her, then slowly dragged it to his twin. "Is something wrong, Cersei?"

She stood there, white-faced, clenching her fists.

"Don't tell me you're jealous," Jaime drawled. "You've had lovers for years. Am I not allowed to… take my ease where I find it, as well?"

Cersei only stared at him, her face enraged but also betrayed. Then she spun on her heel and stomped from the room, slamming the door behind her.

Quiet descended. Arya let the catlike smile fade from her face, stopped the motion of her hand over his abdomen and peeled her lips off his throat. Letting out a weary sigh, she dropped her head to the pillow and stopped her knee sliding up and down his thigh.

And then jerked her head right back up again, because as she had removed her knee, it had brushed against something very worrisome and unwelcome. She stared at him, incredulous.

"I can't believe you," she hissed, scrambling away to the far side of the bed.

"Can't help it, the way you're all over me," he muttered, looking away. "It's been a while."

He sat up against the headboard and drew the coverlet up to his armpits, then clasped his hands over his lap. He looked just as uncomfortable and embarrassed as she felt, and her annoyance drained away. They were both caught in a terrible situation.

"Alright," she said, feeling more calm. "So how do we proceed?"

"There's no way we can stop the alchemists from making the wildfire," he replied, looking relieved to change the subject.

"But we can… hm. We can steal it away, once it's made?"

"They'll notice how the 20 barrels they had yesterday are gone today," Jaime replied, his tone mocking.

"Okay, so, we can replace the barrels of wildfire with barrels of not-wildfire. Ale or something, the barrels are identical." At least she thought they were; she hadn't gotten too good a look at the wildfire barrels while snooping around the guildhall. But it was dim enough, down there, that no one would notice any difference. Probably.

"It would be easier to switch the barrels after they were in place," Jaime said thoughtfully, "rather than while they're still in the guildhall."

"Dangerous."

"If you can devise a way to do it when the place is crawling with alchemists, I beg you to share," he snapped.

"Fine, fine," she grumbled. "It's just… really risky, to wait until it's out there in the city."

"I know. But there's no other way. Can you get a schematic or map of where they plan on putting the barrels?"

"I can try."

"I'll…" He paused. Took a deep breath. "I'll try to get her to tell me about the wildfire. And then to persuade her against it."

"Jaime…"

"I know it won't work." He forced a smile, and it was the saddest thing Arya had ever seen. There was a world of heartbreak in it, and the death of dreams and love and hope. "I still have to try."

"I probably would, too." And she would; she'd never stop trying to reach her brothers or Sansa if they had gotten turned in so wrong a direction.

"I'll continue to listen in when she talks to Qyburn," she said. "I'll come back at night, like this, so we can discuss what we learn."

"Are you going to imitate Cersei?" Jaime asked.

She paused, considering how much she could share with him. "I promise I will let you know it's me, instead of her, if I must take her face."

He shuddered. "It sounds as if you actually take their faces and put them over your own."

Arya just stared at him. His eyes widened.

"You do," he said, his voice both awed and repulsed. "It's not just an illusion. You take their actual faces from them."

"Best to not think about it too much," she replied, her voice hard. "You don't want to know. Not really."

"You're right," Jaime said faintly. "I don't."

Arya clambered off the bed and made to leave, but he reached over and grabbed her arm.

"Please," he said. "If you end up having to kill her…"

She waited. She knew it was not an easy thing he was trying to say.

"Make it easy," he finished. "Quick and easy."

She stared at him. Cersei did not deserve a quick and easy death. For raising Joffrey to be such a vicious cunt, for killing King Robert, for putting incest-spawned bastards on the throne, for creating turmoil and unrest in the kingdom… even, she realized, for how she'd treated her own brother. Jaime had loved her; no, he had adored her, and she had forsaken him over and over and over. For all of those things, she deserved a slow and agonizing demise. And he was still pleading for her to be treated mercifully.

"Please," Jaime said again, softly.

She gave a short nod. "For you," she said. "If you cooperate, and help me, and do not betray me… I will kill her quickly and easily."

He fell back onto his pillow, eyes closed, shoulders tight. "Thank you," he whispered.

Arya hastened into the hidden passageway. She changed her face to that of the red guard once more to make it out of the castle, then the beggar woman to make it back to her room. Gendry was fast asleep on the pallet they'd put on the floor, on his side, bare shoulder peeking out of the threadbare blanket they'd acquired. Arya shed the beggar's face and all of her garb except her shift and smallclothes and crawled in beside him.

After a moment, she inched closer, and then pressed her face between his shoulder blades, curling her arm around his waist. She inhaled deeply, comforted by his scent. He'd bathed, but the smell of iron always lingered on him.

"What's wrong?" he asked, his voice blurry, and placed his hand over hers where it rested on his belly.

"Promise me you'll never lie to me," she said. "You don't have to be with me forever, but while you are… promise that there will be no games or tricks between us."

Gendry rolled over, still in the circle of her arm, to face her. "What is this about, Arry?"

"Promise me, Gendry!" she said urgently to his chest, unable to meet his eyes. "I can't… I can't do this if I can't trust you. I can't become…"

"Become what?"

"Sad and… desperate. Willing to take your scraps. Trapped." She looked up at last, staring at him. "If you get tired of me, promise me you'll tell me. That you won't let me keep thinking you still care for me. That you won't let me make a fool of myself while you laugh."

"Arry. Arya. I wouldn't do any of that. You know I wouldn't." He looked concerned, confused. "What's happened?"

"I've seen what happens when people grow apart. They hurt each other terribly. All there are, are lies, lies, lies. That's fine for most things. That's what I do all day, lie about who I am. But not about this. Not about you."

Gendry stared at her a long time. She wondered what was going on in his head; he could surprise her. Was he discarding all the unnecessary details and getting to the pure heart of the matter? Or was he delving deep and coming up with an answer that no one else would see?

"If one of us were going to beg for scraps, Arry, it wouldn't be you," he said at last. "I've always known that you don't need me. That you could walk away and not feel a moment's regret to leave me behind. You did it in Winterfell, just a few weeks ago. You could do it again tomorrow."

"I'd regret it," she whispered.

"But not enough to keep you from doing it."

She couldn't deny it; he was right. If she had to go, even if her heart were breaking, she'd go.

"And I'd still come after you," Gendry continued. He brought up a hand, brushing her messy hair out of her eyes. "I'll always come after you. Even if you get tired of me."

"But why?" she wailed. "Why? I don't deserve you. I have done nothing to earn you."

"Is love something you have to earn?" he asked, his face thoughtful. "I loved you when I met you, even though you were still a girl. You didn't earn it, I gave it to you. Gladly. You didn't do a thing except be yourself. I thought to myself, if she's this strong and clever and brave now, imagine what she'll be in five years. In ten.

"And now it's been five years, and I was right. You're even stronger and cleverer and braver now. You'll be even better in another five. And then another ten. I can't wait to see what you're like in twenty."

Arya lay there, gaping, stunned speechless. Gendry dropped a kiss on her forehead and turned to give her his back.

"Go to sleep now," he mumbled. "We've got to be up early."


End file.
